


Absolution: A Mass Effect Story

by A_Cosmic_Elf



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Absolution: A Mass Effect Story, Action/Adventure, Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Coming Out, Drama, F/F, F/M, Found Family, Gay, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I make no assumptions on Shepard’s sex/ships, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Intrigue, LGBTQ Character, LGBTQ Character of Color, M/M, Mutual Pining, Mystery, N7 (Mass Effect), N7 Day, Non-Consensual Voyeurism, Other, Rejection, Romance, Slow Burn, You can just slot your own Shepard in here., homosexual disowned
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-07
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-01-24 19:56:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 40,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21343858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Cosmic_Elf/pseuds/A_Cosmic_Elf
Summary: Set during the events of Mass Effect 2, 3 and beyond. A young woman with a forgotten past... an illegal turian AI with dangerous secrets... a powerful ship with a crew on the run... and of course, the Reapers are about to invade.In the latest chapter - The return from the Lazarus mission doesn't exactly go as planned, but at least the team finds some time for some much-needed R&R. Emrys is as enchanting as he is terrifying at times, meanwhile, Shepard takes a road that Emrys had refused take.I present to you Chapter 9 -Lost HighwayMany thanks to my wonderful beta Shackett74
Relationships: Original Characters/Original Characters
Comments: 87
Kudos: 18
Collections: Mass Effect





	1. Contact

**Author's Note:**

> I may adjust archive warnings as the story progresses. This is a not-for-profit fanwork. Mass Effect remains the property of Bioware and EA, but this fic belongs to me. Please don’t copy or share it without my permission. If you like what you read please feel free to leave me a comment, kudos, or check out my other work here. You can contact me via my twitter @elf_cosmic or my Tumblr a-cosmic-elf, where I often discuss the influences behind my writings.  
Thank you. x

> "Hey Bob, I'm looking at what Jack was talking about and… it's definitely not a particle that's nearby. It is a bright object and it's obviously rotating because it's flashing. It's way out in the distance, currently rotating in a very rhythmic fashion because the flashes come around almost on time. As we look back at the Earth it's up at about eleven o'clock. About, oh maybe ten or twelve diame… earth diameters.
> 
> "I don't know whether that does you any good, but there's something out there."
> 
> \- Commander Gene Cernan, Apollo 17, December 1972.

…

He felt the heat from the enemy's weapon through his suit as it sliced through the small shuttle's hull. A glance behind from his place in the pilot seat told Sebastian the emergency shields were holding, but beyond that part of their small craft was gone. He tried to ignore the fact that it had almost taken their daughter too. She was thankfully still sitting in one of the passenger seats behind.

He swallowed hard, forcing his stomach to behave. Protect Faith. That was mission Priority One. He told himself to focus on solving the immediate problem. He would think about what could have happened later.

The alarms had become just background noise. Somehow he kept his breathing slow and steady. Time had seemed to slow. His will to survive had overridden all his fears save one - losing his family. He couldn't give a shit what happened to him, just as long as they lived.

He looked across to Tegan. The tall, blonde, foul-mouthed Aussie - his husband, best friend, and partner in all things - sitting in the co-pilot's seat reading displays, swearing loudly as he tried to get what was left of the ship to respond. He hadn't had time to secure a space-worthy suit before the attack.

Turning in his seat once more he looked back over his shoulder at Faith, who was far from being a child anymore but it didn't matter, no matter how old she was, she would always be his baby girl. She was their daughter, adopted yes, hell she wasn't even human. But it didn't matter. She was theirs and they loved her. He would do anything for her. He would die to protect her.

But dying wasn't going to protect her today.

Faith stared back at him with those large blue eyes, so striking in that golden pointed face, beautiful, expressive, and now wide with fear. Her wild, unruly mane of silver curls now singed, her long mobile ears were turned down and flat against her head in an obvious sign of discomfort. She had pulled her feet up to the seat and sat hugging her knees. He knew that she'd be screaming at him now if she could.

Her species was a mystery, they'd found her as a baby floating out there in the black, in what they can only assume was some kind of escape pod. She had no vocal cords, instead, she communicated via some form of telepathy, initiated by physical contact and had something to do with that strange bone protrusion that rose a few inches from her forehead. The other kids on the colony had teased her and called her ugly. But to Sebastian and Tegan she was beautiful. Sadly her appearance meant a human-style rebreather helmet would not fit that pretty head. She wore a mask they had procured from an asari merchant. She was breathing heavily behind it.

Christ, he thought, if they get spaced…

"AARGH! Dammit, Seb. We are fucked!" Tegan's colourful assessment of the situation broke Sebastian out of his reverie, allowed him to push those thoughts aside too.

Focus, he told himself.

Another small explosion from somewhere behind him rocked the shuttle. They were not going to reach the relay in the distance in time, not at least before their ship fell apart.

As an N7 you are trained to keep a cool head and have a reputation for beating the odds. If there was a way out of any situation he was going to find it. So, he decided, this was not going to happen. They were not going to die here. He was Sebastian Crosse, a retired war veteran and he was going to get his family out of there even if it meant doing the one thing that would anger Tegan the most.

All other plays had failed.

This was the only one they had left.

He leaned forward, grasped the panel between the consoles and pulled it off. Concealed behind was a trigger switch that Faith had never seen before. Sebastian reached for it, paused and looked across to his co-pilot.

Tegan's face was a picture of surprise. "We promised each other we'd never use that fucking thing!" He yelled over the noise from the console.

Yeah, well… that was before somebody blew a hole in our ship. Sebastian mused to himself.

Sebastian had asked so much of Tegan over the years yet the brash and overly confident former Alliance Scout had never faltered once. Tegan always had his back, no matter what. Sure he'd complain and curse loudly - about everything - but Sebastian knew he could count on him. Tegan was the only one that had been with him from the start and who has stayed at his side, even when it meant disobeying a direct order to do so. The man was a stubborn, bloody idiot. Every day Sebastian had wondered what he had done to deserve such loyalty from Tegan and he would be forever grateful for it. It was moments like this that made Sebastian realise just how much he loved him.

Retirement together on that quiet little colony had been their dream. So this is how it ends?

No. Sebastian knew that his partner's protest was just an act. He knew that Tegan was going to swallow his pride, cover his hand with his own and they would press that godforsaken switch together. Because none of them were dying today.

On the display in front of them the static on a rear camera cleared for a couple of seconds, the alien ship was coming round for another pass.

Tegan gave another moan in frustration, "Oh that fucking asshole!" he swore again, stamping his foot in frustration, "He's never gonna let me forget this." He reached forward and took hold of Sebastian's hand on the switch and then looked across to him in reluctance.

"No. He won't." Sebastian replied with a smile.

They did it. They pushed the switch.

Sebastian held Tegan's gaze. In the passenger seat behind them, Faith stared at both of her parents in confusion. What had just happened? Who were they talking about? How was this going to help them get out of here? She was terrified, she tried to be brave and to hide it, but she knew both her parents could both feel it.

Sebastian breathed in… one, two… breathed out… one, two… Here we go again, he thought to himself… one, two… 

Oh shit, had it even worked?

The sudden flash of light at eleven o'clock gave him the answer.

And there it was. The ship that he had half wished that he would never see again. Both as bright as day and as black as the night. As terrifying as it was awe-inspiring. Its unique relay drive flashing rhythmically as it rotated, mimicking the system's mass relay behind, shone with such ferocity that the occupants of the small craft instinctively held up their arms to shield their eyes.

"Fuck! I'd forgotten how big that thing was!" Tegan as he reeled in his seat.

The rings on the ship appeared to slow, the light dimmed to a more tolerant level and the mighty vessel started to change shape. Wide wings unfolded from either side of its enormous black hull, which was only visible in silhouette against the light of its engines and the mass relay beyond. Curiously, the light from the system's star seemed to slide off it, almost fooling the mind into thinking that you hadn't seen anything at all... until it moved. With thrusters engaged, like a nightmarish creature that had just been cornered, this thing turned to face them.

Faith's ears had pricked at the initial surprise of the ship's arrival but soon fell again at the sight, an expression of horror darkened her features.

Sebastian stared at the vessel, unfazed. He knew who was looking at them. He had a pretty good idea of what was going on behind that terrifying façade.

The command deck was empty because as large as this vessel was it still didn't need a crew. Instead, it was manned by a single, very old and rather irascible artificial intelligence and whoever these aliens were, they were about to feel the sharp edge of his temper.

Lines upon lines of code scrolled across every station on the deck. Slowly the AI built up his avatar, pixel-by-pixel, as he made his way across the command deck to the centre of the room. A physical presence wasn't necessary for what he had to do but… how he did love to put on a show. Especially for an audience. And it appeared that he was about to get just that.

With a thought he opened the front of the ship and unleashed a squadron of unmanned fighters, they poured out of its great maw like angry insects from a disturbed nest in a multi-armed and ever-growing spiral formation.

The time had come to claim back what was his.

Aboard the small craft, in the face of such an oncoming force, Faith's panic reached a crescendo. She released herself from her seat harness and threw her arms around Sebastian's shoulders. "It's okay honey," he assured her, rubbing the back of her arm with his free hand, the other still gripped tight by Tegan, "He's with us."

The drones flew straight past and took up positions between them and the hulking alien ship behind. Meanwhile, the ships the main gun batteries were brought online and he had targeted the enemy. Once he had made his intentions towards the shuttle known the AI paused, his avatar stared at the aggressors on the display. "Your move." He said threateningly.

Meanwhile just because the great ship didn't need a crew, didn't mean that there was nobody else on board. On one of the lower decks, an asari ran from her quarters and out into the corridor overlooking the ship's mass relay drive.

She wore the loose-fitting garb of an engineer which looked like it had been pulled on in a rush and a large set of protective eyewear that allowed her to peer over the rail at the huge spinning ball of light that had just moved the ship from wherever it was to wherever they were now. Grinning with excitement she let go of the rail and pushing her protective goggles up onto her forehead she bolted down the hall as fast as she could towards the elevator and the command deck. Finally some action, she thought. _He_ would be there and oh… how she loved to watch him work.

As she emerged onto the bridge her beloved mentor was indeed standing at his post with his back to her as always, deep in concentration, not even flinching at her arrival or even acknowledging her presence. He didn't need to, he knew she had been on her way. She knew better than to disturb him and leaned up against the back wall, folded her arms, with her head cocked to one side as she observed from a discrete distance. She also recognised the small ship in front of them. She smiled. Of course. Who else could have inspired this reaction from him, other than Crosse?

Behind the small broken craft, the alien vessel appeared to be turning away and towards the system's mass relay. She couldn't resist a comment. "It looks like they're breaking off, Maestro!" she said.

Without taking his eyes off the aggressor the AI's avatar hummed in amused agreement. Then he said slowly, in a whimsical but matter-of-fact way, "It must have been something they saw."

The image of the alien vessel enlarged suddenly on the holographic display as the AI's avatar held up his hands as if to shoo it away and said mocking tones "Boo." And the alien ship disappeared through the relay. His chuckle was low and dark. He had enjoyed every moment of that encounter.

Back out in the crippled shuttle alarms were still sounding, they were losing power and soon the shields would fail. They weren't out of trouble yet. Still, despite the noise and the drama of impending death, the three occupants could not take their eyes off the colossal ship in front. The thought that it was only appearing to get even larger since it was moving towards them brought Faith little comfort.

Sabastian had always thought it reminded him of a great manta ray as it loomed ahead, jaws agape, preparing to swallow them whole. He remembered the first time he had encountered this ship and this wasn't all that different. Only now he entered it willingly. And now he knew what awaited them inside.

Steadily they passed into the front of the ship and all around them the smaller fighter craft filed back in too. The interior glowed a soft blue and wasn't nearly as intimidating as it was from the outside. Faith looked round in wonder. She could see into dozens of decks that lined this vast open space and was reminded of the pictures she had seen on the extranet of the Citadel. She had never felt so small.

The cavernous vessel had internal docks for smaller craft, such as theirs. Everything was fully automated, which was a good thing too because they had next to no manoeuvrability in their current state. They felt a small jolt as large mechanical arms reached out and secured the shuttle with docking clamps, and a sense of disorientation as the craft was pulled into position. It slotted into a space that seemed like it had been made for it. Well, it would have fitted perfectly if only the act of handling the shuttle hadn't dislodged what was left of the tail and one of the engines. Both finally broke free and began to float away. They were quickly retrieved by what Faith could only assume were maintenance drones.

"I have you, Crosse." said a strange sounding but somehow familiar voice from somewhere within the ship. "Welcome home."

…

Another thud and a hiss told them that they had been connected to the pressurized deck. Both men released themselves from their seats. Sebastian removed his gauntlets and helmet and ran his slender brown fingers through his short black but greying hair. After a moment's pause, he seemed to collect himself and got up out of his seat. "Come on," he said to Faith who had removed her ill-fitting mask, leading her by the hand and out onto the deck. Tegan followed reluctantly, she glanced back and caught him rolling his eyes as he let out a long sigh. It appeared that her Dadda was not too pleased to be here. Wherever here was.

After a short walk they arrived at an elevator, Sebastian stepped inside, pulling a dazed Faith with him. A visibly annoyed Tegan boarded too, resting with his back to the handrail, his arms folded across his chest, head back and his eyes skyward. No buttons were pressed and nothing was said but still, the doors closed behind them and upwards they travelled. They arrived on what Faith assumed was the bridge of the ship, but it was nothing like she would have imagined.

It was like stepping into space. There were a few active but empty console stations that could just be seen lining the outer walls of the room but they were lost behind the largest simulation of the cosmos that Faith could have ever dreamed possible. It was floor to ceiling, above and below, all-encompassing. It was so overwhelming she felt dizzy and the sudden urge to sit down. She moved behind Sebastian, gripping his shoulders and tried to bury her face into his armoured back. This was all a little too much.

Meanwhile, a smiling asari who had been standing off to one side threw herself into Tegan's arms. Gratefully he returned to the hug, lifting her off her feet. "Aw, g'day Kat!" He exclaimed through the effort, before planting her back down on the deck and releasing her. The greeting had seemed to soften Tegan's mood a little.

Sebastian's attention, however, was fully focused on the tall, slender figure standing with his back to them in the centre of the room.

"Emrys!" he called.

From the vids she had seen, Faith immediately recognised him as being turian. But he was unlike any she had ever seen before. At Sebastian's call, the figure moved only to raise a gloved hand, "One moment, please," came the reply that same calm, gentle, alien yet familiar voice.

"All fighters secured. Stand down battle stations." He continued, as if to no one in particular. And then slowly the figure turned to face them.

He was a perfect reflection of the ship itself, both light and darkness. His pale grey carapace, almost white against the skin beneath, which was as black as the void. It gave him a frightful appearance, he resembled many human artistic impressions of death itself. But if that wasn't unnerving enough, as he turned he fixed Sebastian with two bright but different coloured eyes, one a pale blue, the other a deep green.

Curiously Faith peered around Sebastian. Who or indeed what was this person? He looked entirely out of place, even his clothes seemed rather old fashioned. He was dressed in a formal white suit with a long-tailed jacket, not something you'd expect to see on the bridge of a great ship such as this. It was like he'd stepped off the set of a historical drama.

He moved towards them, Faith instinctively flinched and once again tried to hide behind her father but then she realised what she was seeing wasn't a person at all. It some kind of projection! There was no weight in his footfalls, he made no sound as he moved and seemed to glide towards them. It was as if he wasn't there at all.

He stopped a few feet away and looked down at them. When he spoke his tones were warm and honeyed, his voice was soft with each word said slowly and enunciated perfectly. The effect was almost hypnotic. "Sabastian." He said, "It is good to see you, old friend." His mandibles flared ever so slightly as he greeted them, exposing long and sharp-looking teeth. "My apologies," he continued, dropping his head a little, "moving the ship halfway across the galaxy, launching a small offensive and making sure that I don't accidentally kill you in the process, is a lot to handle. Even for me."

Faith took an instant liking to how he gestured with his hands as he spoke. It was obvious to her that he was a very expressive person.

He looked past Sebastian to his left, "Tegan," he said, "it's been a long time."

"Ems." Tegan shot back with a curt little salute.

He then noticed Faith. Surely, he must have been aware of her presence but still as his eyes met hers he seemed a little taken aback. He appeared to falter but then immediately recovered. Clasping one hand to his chest and dipping his head again slightly he said, "Welcome aboard, Faith O'Hara-Crosse." Then turning out his right palm towards her he repeated and signed, "Welcome to the Absolution."

…

Faith was dumbstruck. In that moment all she could think to do was just to sign back ‘Hello'. For an instant, it seemed like the turian was going to reply but a sudden inquiry from Sebastian interrupted him. 

"Who just hit us Emrys?" he asked urgently.

An almost imperceptible movement of the turian’s head and the way he closed those eyes, to open them again fixed upon Sebastian, told Faith that her father's interruption had been an unwelcome one. 

"They are known as the Collectors." He replied matter-of-factly, "I have had encounters with them in the past and usually they stay out of my way. The galaxy is a very large pond. But then again," he added with obvious pride, "I am a rather large fish."

"We have to go after them!" Tegan exclaimed desperately, "They have the entire colony!"

"We cannot." He denied simply.

"Ems, please, we've lived with those people for years, some of them are friends!" Tegan protested earnestly.

"Go after them, you say..." Emrys lifted his chin while approaching Tegan while still looking down at him with that uneven stare, his eyes narrowed, his soft voice turned dark and belittling. "And what do you propose we do once we catch up with them?" He said slowly. "Ask them nicely to return the humans? Do you think they will listen?"

He didn't wait for an answer, turning back to Sebastian he continued "I cannot stop them and I do not have the defensive capabilities to withstand a direct attack. At best, all I can do is distract them, discourage them,” He said tilting his head to one side, “but if they were to ever turn and test me I would have no choice but to flee."

"Nothing's changed there then," muttered Tegan spitefully, which earned him a warning glance from both the other men. Tegan held up both hands, "Look, I'm just saying, you could stop them if you wanted to. I don't get how you can just stand by and watch these things happen. You're a cold-hearted bastard Ems! And don't give me that ‘with great power comes great responsibility' bullshit. Think of the people you could have saved!"

"Have you finished?" Emrys asked. "If I were so cold then I would have left you to die on numerous occasions. You should be thanking me. Not just for rescuing you, yet again I might add, but also for pledging to never use this ship in anger ever again. Had I not done so we would not be having this conversation. My creators would have wiped your people from existence." He paused, his last words rang out menacingly across the deck and faded like distant thunder.

The comment of having to save them again had sent Tegan into a huffing spin. He turned his back on Emrys and motioned in an ‘I told you so' kind of way at Sebastian who patted the air down with a calming hand in response. There was an uneasy silence.

Having made his point Emrys continued, "Returning to the matter at hand, the Collectors do not collect for themselves, they are usually hired. We will need to find out by whom. I have my suspicions. I will make some discrete enquiries".

"Be careful Ems," said Sebastian.

"I always am," he replied confidently, "In the meantime, it is late, you've been through a lot and you must be tired. I suggest you get some sleep. Please report to Nana first thing in the morning, no doubt she will be delighted to see you."

They turned to leave, Sebastian guided Faith towards the elevator with a gentle hand on her back.

"Sebastian?" Emrys called after them, "Before you go, may I have a private word?"

Sebastian directed Faith to follow Kat and Tegan off the deck, as the elevator closed behind him he turned to look at Emrys.

The AI's avatar had taken a much more relaxed pose, one arm crossed his chest, supporting the other elbow while he caressed his chin with his free hand. "I still cannot see her," he said thoughtfully.

"See who?" Sebastian was confused.

"Faith. I mean, I ‘see' her standing there as you do," He said gesturing to the elevator, "through the eyes of my avatar, but she does not appear on any of my internal sensors."

"Really? That's erm… weird!" _And clever,_ Sebastian thought to himself.

"Indeed. It must be some kind of natural stealth ability, unique to her kind. It is truly… fascinating…" Emrys's voice trailed off.

Sebastian considered this for a moment and what it could mean. Suddenly he was aware of how much his head hurt. "If that's all, you're right, I think I need to go lie down for a bit." He said rubbing the back of his head.

"Hmm…" the AI hummed, obviously still distracted by what he'd just seen, or not seen in Faith's case. His eyes were fixed on the closed doors of the elevator. Sebastian turned to leave. "By the way," Emrys said, "it is good to have you back, old friend, I have missed you."

Sebastian looked back at him and smirked as if he didn’t entirely believe it.

"All of you," Emrys replied sincerely.

…

"Back barely a few minutes and you've already upset him, T, that must be some kind of record." Said Kat with laughter in her voice as they entered what appeared to Faith to be a mess hall.

"Fuck that guy. He hasn't changed one bit," said Tegan, clearly not caring who heard.

"Did you really expect him to? And neither have you. Except for maybe a few old lines." She continued to tease.

Sebastian, having jogged down the corridor, caught up and entered the room after them.

"At least I haven't gone grey!" said Tegan, running his hands through his hair and beard, his comment was clearly aimed at his partner.

Sebastian pretended that he couldn't hear him and was busying himself by checking through the cupboards.

"I think Seb looks great," said Kat turning to him, "You look like you've hardly aged a day Boss, how'd you do it?"

Sebastian grabbed himself a packet of something out of one of the cupboards, turned round he broke it open and winked at her. The Asari blushed a deeper blue.

"Oh, by the way, Kat, you two haven't been formally introduced," he said gesturing for Faith to join them. She'd been hovering by the door, feeling like an outsider.

"Kat this is our daughter Faith." He said, "Faith, this is Kat, engineer and all-round technical whiz-kid. If anything is broken, she'll fix it." 

"Hi nice to meet you!" said Kat breezily, she moved towards Faith and held out her hand.

"N-n-no!" called Sebastian through a mouthful of food, but it was too late. Kat had taken Faith's hand in hers and a connection between their minds was instantly made.

Faith innocently sent a cheerful greeting consisting of images of herself, said hello, who she was plus feelings of excitement at connecting to a new person.

Kat screamed. She let go of Faith's hand and recoiled back against one of the mess hall tables, plates and cutlery hit the floor with a loud clatter. "What the fuck was that?!" she exclaimed, rubbing the palm of her hand as if she'd just been burnt.

"Sorry, I'm sorry!" Faith signed in vain but Kat just stared back at her in horror.

"Kat, I'm sorry we should have warned you," Sebastian tried to explain, "Faith doesn't communicate in the same way as we do."

"Never do that to me again," Kat warned at Faith, slowly emphasising each word with a pointed finger. "Stay out of my head." She looked at both men incredulously. "I'm going back to bed," she said and stormed out.

Faith looked down at the deck and silent tears began to spill out onto the floor.

"Hey, hey, hey, sweetheart," Tegan moved to Faith's side and put his arms around her, "that wasn't your fault. Kat is just… She's different from most asari, but she's a good person, she'll come round, I promise."

Sebastian joined them both and the family shared a group hug, the connections between Faith and her fathers were the strongest. They could hear her speak in their minds and she could hear them, sometimes for hours after the initial contact.

"Dad." She asked Sebastian. "Where are we and why'd we have to come here?" he heard her dream-like tones in his head.

Sebastian looked at Tegan who let go of them both, took a step back, shrugged and said, "We might as well come clean."

"Okay." Sebastian said addressing their daughter, "I'll show you but please understand. Everything we have done was to protect you. Even not telling you about this place. You'll know what I say is true, come here." He took both of her hands and rested his forehead to the bone crest on hers. He was sharing a memory with her.

She saw the Absolution, she saw them open some kind of organic-looking pod. Then she saw a child, herself as a baby in Sebastian's arms. She looked down at the child and could feel Sebastian's love. It made the baby smile and it reached for him. And then she saw… him… She saw Emrys. The child in her arms screamed uncontrollably in her mind, she was terrified and instinctively tried to roll away. The screams started to become so loud in her head that it was painful.

She pulled away and let go of her father's hands.

"When we opened the pod and found you our lives changed forever," Sebastian said.

Tegan had sat hunched on the edge of one of the tables, "It's true. We loved you immediately, whether that was just the result of the connection, I don't even care, it is what it is. And your reaction to Ems, well, you don't need words to express that. I couldn't blame you, he's a scary bastard at the best of times. When I first met him I shit my pants!" Tegan added with a chuckle, clearly trying to make light of the situation.

"After we found you it was clear that we couldn't stay here, it was causing you too much distress," Sebastian explained. "It was decided that we would leave and find a nice little backwater world to live on. Somewhere where people wouldn't ask too many questions. A place where you'd be able to grow up relatively safe and with a real sky above your head. It's all we ever wanted really, a life together and a family, far away from everything else…"

But mainly from the Alliance, he thought. He glanced at Tegan who gave him a sad, knowing smile.

"We never told you about the _Absolution_ because knowledge of this ship could put you at risk. And we never expected to come back. Hell, we were not even meant to be here in the first place. We're meant to be dead."

Faith knew this bit of course. She'd heard the tale a hundred times. After the First Contact War, Sebastian entered the N7 program, from which he graduated with honours. Unfortunately for him and his squad, their first mission was just a political stunt and a bust from the start. When things inevitably went south Sebastian was injured, he sacrificed himself so that the rest of his team could escape. The Alliance saw fit to deny the entire operation had happened at all. Only one member of his squad had refused to leave Sebastian to die. With his help, against all odds, they made their escape. They'd been in hiding together ever since. They were just two soldiers who officially had died on a training exercise. Unofficially they were deserters, although they may have something to say about who exactly deserted who, which is why Faith had been taught not to ask too many questions and to never, ever, discuss their past.

That was the version they had always told her. Only they'd seem to have left out the part where'd they'd been rescued by a turian apparition and his giant relay powered ship.

"Who is he? Where did he come from?" She asked.

Sebastian sighed. "You're better off asking him." He took her hand again and she heard her warnings in her mind – "This is not the safest of places, it was just our best option. Be careful when talking to Emrys, he's probably one of the most dangerous people alive."

She promised that she would. Suddenly she was aware of how tired she was, covering her mouth with a hand she yawned.

Tegan yawned too "Oh girl, you got me." He said wearily.

"Come on," said Sebastian, "if I didn’t have a headache before, I certainly do know.” He said rubbing is temples and leading them out of the room. “Let's get some sleep." 

"Good idea," said Tegan following, "this must look like we're holding some kind of weird silent séance to him anyway," he said pointing upwards.

"How do you know he's watching?" Faith asked.

"He's always watching," Sebastian told her, "he can hear and see everything that happens on this ship, remember that." He warned her, making a mental note to tell Tegan about what Emrys had confessed.

He wasn't sure if he was ready to tell his wayward daughter that she could slip off to anywhere in the ship and not even the AI would know where she was. He felt like he needed to keep that little piece of information to himself until he'd discussed solutions with Nana. They needed to keep Faith safe from harm.

Faith chose quarters not too far from their own. Sebastian was keen that they stay together and had offered her their couch but she seemed to want to be alone, so instead he made her promise to stay on this deck. "Wandering around a strange ship can be dangerous." He warned her. She'd just waved them both off and closed the door behind her. Tegan shot him a worried look.

They entered their own quarters, Tegan sat down on the bed and reeled, "Whoa… this place hasn't changed one bit. We've been gone what? Twenty-odd years? Yet it's like we've never left!"

"It's not home," Sebastian said, looking around the room, he placed the packets he'd taken from the galley, his gauntlets, and helmet on the table. "We left our home back there, and everything in it."

Tegan got up and hugged him, "It's okay, it's just stuff. We'll get new stuff. The most important thing is that we're all safe." He turned his head and nodded towards the bed. "Oh look," he said grinning, "there's the bed, we had such fun times there, fancy recreating a few?"

Sebastian looked away and tried not to laugh. Tegan would always do this to avoid serious conversations between them.

"I always did like you in that armour, it holds you in all the right places. A bit hard to sleep in it though, right? Perhaps you should take it off." Tegan winked at him.

"Babe, seriously," Sebastian said half laughing now, he let go of him and gestured widely in the air.

"Oh come on," Tegan laughed "don't get shy on me. Besides, he's never bothered you this much before. He's an annoying smug bastard yes, but... oh, that reminds me. What did ‘Willy-fucking-Wonker' have to say that was so hush-hush earlier anyway?"

"He told me he can't see Faith, something about a natural stealth ability, she's not showing on his sensors."

"Good for her, someone he can't hear or see, that'll keep the nosey tosser on his toes."

Sebastian snorted a small laugh, then looking about the room he sighed heavily. "Sorry, it's going to take me a little while to get used to being here. I never thought we would do it. We were retired, I never expected to ever see this place again. I thought we were going to grow old together and die on that moon." he confessed sadly.

"Hmm," Tegan agreed. "Now we're just old."

"Better than being dead?" Sebastian asked.

"I'll never blame you for pushing that switch if that's what you mean.”

…

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< data link established ...>

<<Still not giving up, are you? How's it going? Out there… in the dark?>>

<<YOU CONTINUE TO DEFY ME.>>

<<Oh I am sorry. That was you was it? I should have known, they have been rather bold of late. Collecting N7's are you? Well, I'm afraid you can't have Crosse, he's mine. What are you doing with all those humans anyway? Wait… I don't think I want to know.>>

<<THEY ARE TO ASCEND. THEY WILL BE PURE.>>

<<Ah. Is that supposed to hurt my feelings? As one person has already pointed out today, I may not have any. Sorry.>>

<<I AM CLOSE NOW. IT WILL NOT BE LONG.>>

<<You must be busy then. I won't keep you.>>

< connection terminated...>

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...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may have noticed at the front of this chapter is a transcript of a real-life communication from Commander Gene Cernan of Apollo 17, as he did his best to describe an unidentified object in space to mission control in 1972. If you think you have heard it before it’s because it featured at the front of this track [Contact by Daft Punk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JI5noh4OyXc), at the end of their 2013 album 'Random Access Memories'. I thought it would be fun to suggest that Emrys has been watching the human race for a very long time.  
Like many writers I am heavily inspired by the music I listen to. You will find many of my chapters for this work have a musical inspiration.  
Thank you so much for reading this far, you don't know what it means to me. I hope you are intrigued enough to stick around for the next chapter! Please leave me a comment or kudos if you have enjoyed this work, it will keep me motivated to carry on.  
Keelah Se'lai


	2. Friends Lost & Found

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the aftermath of the attack, Faith tries to come to terms with her new reality. Mourning the loss of old friends, while being introduced to the crew of the Absolution.

They laid in each other's arms under the starlit sky. He held up one hand and she held up her own, their fingers met, her's were much longer than a human's and with sharp-looking claw-like fingernails that shone silver in the half-light, like her hair. Together they framed the gas giant Idman that filled the sky of Cyrene. It was a beautiful night.

"Don't you ever want to go out there?" He asked.

"Why?" he heard her say, deflecting his question with one of her own in his mind.

"You don't want to find out where you're from, who your people are?" He wondered.

She sighed internally. She was so fed up with people asking her this question. She held back the annoyance and kept it to herself though. He was far too cute to be annoyed at, at least not for long.

"You're my people," she said, threading her soft downy gold fingers through his pale smooth-skinned ones, "you, Dad and Dadda."

"You know what I mean. I can't see why you're not curious. I would be."

"I am." she admitted, "I do think it would be a shame if I never find out. But I can't miss what I've never had. I have everything I need right here."

She lent across, took his face in her hands and brought his forehead to hers. Their connection was strong, she knew that he was attracted to her, but was sure that his feelings came from a desire to fulfill his own needs, she wasn't sure that it was love.

It certainly wasn't the kind of love that she'd felt between her fathers. Sometimes she had tapped into their feelings for each other accidentally, she couldn't help it, her parents projected it like inescapable beacons. She couldn't help but pick up on it. Their love for one another felt powerful, unshakable, determined and unconditional. It had been honed by what they had been through together. Tempered by the horrors of war.

She hoped that one day she would feel that same love for her from another. She figured perhaps it was the kind that only grew over time, through such shared experiences. But for now, she was content to just have some fun.

And Jamie was fun, at least when he wasn't bragging in front of his friends or flirting with other girls.

When they kissed it was explosive. That sweet, sharp pang of need that rose up inside them both, her lips on his, his on hers, through the connection they felt it all, from both perspectives. Being connected to someone else's mind was like everything you felt was in stereo. She knew he was intoxicated by it and she was happy to have him in her thrall.

Suddenly a rumbling sound in the distance forced them apart.

"What's that?" He said. "Thunder? It's not supposed to rain tonight."

They looked up again, from their place laying in the field. The skies were still clear, not a single cloud could be seen.

"There!" She spotted something, a light in the sky above.

"Is… is that a ship?" He asked.

They both peered into the night's sky, straining to try and make out what the object was.

Far off in the distance emergency sirens began to sound.

"Oh shit, I think we're under attack!" He exclaimed.

"Slavers?" She wondered aloud in his mind.

"Come on, we have to get back to the township!" He said, jumping to his feet and pulling her up too.

Hand in hand they fled back to the settlement. By the time they reached it the object had stopped its descent and hung ominously in the sky above the town.

"What the fuck is that?" he asked aloud.

"No idea!" She told him. Which was true, she'd never seen anything like it before. It didn't look like any type of ship that she had seen. It looked like a giant rock hovering above them.

The gates of the settlement were still open, which was odd, surely they should have been closed the moment the alarms sounded. They ran through them and straight into hell. Their once peaceful town had turned into an unrecognisable chaotic, panic-stricken nightmare. The air was thick with insects. Many people had fallen in the streets. Some were still running, screaming, stepping on the fallen, others just seem to be standing there unmoving, like statues.

"Ugh, what the, ow!" Jamie exclaimed. She was almost jerked off her feet as he stopped dead, still holding her hand tightly.

"Jamie, come on! What's wrong?" She asked him.

"It bit me! Oh god, Faith! What's happening? I can't move!" She heard him in her mind.

"I'll get help." She said, prising her hand away from his.

"Hurry Faith, I'm scared!" He told her, although she didn't need him to, she could feel it.

"I know, me too." She replied and tore herself away from him, batting the bugs flying around her away with flailing arms.

"DAD!" She called out in her mind, running back towards her family's homestead. She passed others, men, women, and children. All frozen. She passed the people she knew. She flew up the porch and into the living area, her heart hammering in her chest, her throat burning with the effort.

"DAD!" she sent out again, "DADDA!?"

She checked each room, those bugs were everywhere but nobody was home. At least they hadn't been bitten like the others, she thought desperately.

She ran back out into the yard and towards the large shed at the side of the house. She knew where her parents would be in an emergency, they'd drilled her enough. It was something that she had always done with reluctance, thinking that they were crazy old men living in the past. She found the hatch beside the barn, the lock clicked open with a touch of her omitool and she pulled it open, climbed inside and closed the hatch door behind her.

The tunnel was dimly lit but she ran as fast as she dared down the concrete stairs to their underground bunker. There she found both her fathers who appeared to be preparing to leave.

"Faith, thank god, I was just about to come out to find you. Get on the shuttle." said her father, he was wearing that armour again, which was never a good sign.

"Dad, we can't go, we have to help them!" She signed, unsure if he could hear her.

"We will, but we need to find help first." He said.

"Dad!" She wailed frantically in their heads.

"We can't help your boyfriend now." he said, "Go."

"How did you know he's my boyfriend?" She asked sheepishly.

"You talk, I mean project, in your sleep. Look, I don't have to be psychic to know that my daughter is seeing someone. Just suit up, get in the shuttle, we'll talk about this later."

Feeling slightly sick about leaving Jamie behind but unable to persuade her father, eyes stinging with tears she reluctantly did as she was told.

"Argh, the seals in this suit are fucked," her Dadda moaned from the co-pilot seat, he'd been ignoring their conversation while performing some last-minute checks. "I was going to buy new ones the next time the merchants were in town but, ...fucking fuck's sake." He said, giving up on trying to fix his suit and punching keys on the console. "You know, the minute we open those hanger doors they'll be on us."

"I know." her other father said, taking his place beside him.

"Do you reckon we can break atmo before they catch us?"

"Pray that we can. We have to FTL to the next system. Let's hope that whoever they are, they'll be too busy here to worry about one small shuttle before we reach Haskin and the relay. Start the engines, we're leaving."

…

Faith woke with a start. Immediately she regretted falling asleep in her clothes, she felt grimy and had an awful taste in her mouth. She turned over, opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling. But it wasn't the same, it wasn't pale gray, there were no rivets that held their prefabricated home together. This ceiling was smooth, dark but at the same time shining with strange green and blue iridescent hues in the light.

_Where was that light coming from?_ She wondered. The shower room. Of course, where she had rushed to throw up after closing the door on her parents and then collapsing on the bed the night before.

In those half-awake moments she had forgotten where she was, and then the horrific events came flooding back. Jamie and the other people frozen, unmoving, the bugs, the alien ship, the shuttle, fire, explosions, the acrid smell of burning plastic and hair, the sound of alarms and her parents shouting.

Jamie...

She turned onto her side, curled up and allowed herself to cry. Great racking sobs that shook her body and tears soaked the pillow. Then she heard a sound that made her stop. The last sob faded away and her ears moved to try and focus on whatever it was.

Was somebody singing?

She sat up and listened. Someone was definitely singing, it sounded far off like it was coming from somewhere else in the ship. As she listened it seemed somehow familiar, sorrowful yet calming. She felt sure she had heard the tune before but she did not recognise the words. Whoever they were her translator would not pick it up, it was like their voice was echoing far off in some distant hall.

She got up, went to the door of the room and opened it, peering out onto deck. It was empty. All she could hear was what she assumed was the sound of the ship's engines. All else was quiet. The singing had stopped.

…

By the time Faith had showered and dressed, back into her own clothes, since all she found in her room were vacuum-packed turian flight suits hanging in the wardrobe that were definitely not going to fit, Sebastian was waiting for her outside in the corridor.

"You sleep ok?" He asked.

She shrugged.

"I know," he said, putting his arm around her shoulders as he guided her down the hall "it's going to take some getting used to. Look, I'm going to grab some breakfast, fancy joining me? Then there is someone else I'd like you to meet."

They entered the mess hall, Tegan was there with Kat who stood hanging on the arm of a man Faith hadn't seen before. He was human, not much older than Faith if she had to guess, with pale skin, dark eyes and well kept short mousy brown hair.

"Morning Seb!" Kat greeted him, as brightly as she had the day before.

She looked at Faith who signed "Good Morning." Kat looked away again as if she hadn't seen her. Okay, thought Faith as her heart sank. It was going to be like that.

Suddenly Kat announced "I'd like you both to meet my very good friend," inclining her head towards the man's shoulders "and talented shuttle pilot, Will." The man she was holding onto seemed to blush and raised his hand.

"Will, this is Tegan's husband Sebastian and their daughter Faith," Kat said flatly.

"Good to meet you, Will." Said Sebastian and shook the man's offered hand. Will looked at Faith and immediately shoved his free hand back into his pocket.

Faith assumed that Kat had warned him about what had happened between them. He looked at her with a warm smile however and said "Hello!" She signed a greeting back and went to help herself to a cup of coffee.

"So," said Sebastian to Kat and Will, as they all sat down at a table, "how did you two meet?"

"It was at a gaming tournament on Illium. This one here plays a mean game of Kepesh-Yakshi," said Will, giving Kat a little nudge on her shoulder.

"Don't sell yourself short!" She said, "you nearly had me towards the end."

"We ended up having a few drinks after, one thing led to another and, you know. I practically had to beg her for extranet address, honestly, I was terrified that this beautiful mysterious asari was going to disappear from my life and I'd never see her again."

"Clearly, that didn't happen," remarked Sebastian with a smile.

"Thankfully! And I landed the most amazing job in the galaxy, I mean look at this place! Beats the crap out of shuttling around rich playboy's toys, that's for sure. And Kat tells me you arrived on a turian sabre?! Oh man, I've heard about those things, never seen one!" Will said excitedly.

"She's seen better days, sadly," admitted Sebastian. "I'll be surprised if even Kat can get her spaceworthy again."

"We'll do what we can, Boss. That must have been one hell of a ride out of there, from what I've seen you're all lucky to be alive. Thank the goddess for friends in high places, hey?" said Kat pointing upwards.

Tegan gave an indignant grunt.

"Tegan," Will said. "By the way, why do you have a girl's name?"

Tegan immediately bristled, he turned and stared at the younger man, breathed in sharply and said bluntly "It's not where I'm from."

Kat stifled a small laugh. The last time someone had asked him that question it had started a bar fight. Tegan looked at her with a bemused expression and added "My mum wanted a girl, alright?"

The conversation was thankfully cut short by the toaster popping up, a rank burnt smell filled the room that made everyone cover their faces.

"Oh for fuck's sake," moaned Tegan. "Kat, when you've got a moment will you take a look at this thing, please? No matter what I do it always burns."

"Works fine for me every time T!" Kat said still laughing, "it must be just you, you never have got on well with technology."

"I shouldn't need a degree to use a fucking toaster." He complained, knowing that she wasn't just referring to kitchen appliances. Sighing he dumped the charred contents into the waste disposal.

"Kat," Sebastian changed the subject again, "I didn't get a chance last night to ask how you are. How have things been here since we left?"

"Seb it's incredible. He's incredible. You will not believe the things that I have learned. This ship and it's relay drive, it's a true game-changer, it will revolutionise space travel in a way that hasn't been seen since the discovery of the relays, element zero, mass effect, all of it. It's the next big step. I could have never dreamed that I would discover a place like this. It's an engineer's dream come true!"

"I hear a 'but' in there..." Sebastian mused.

Kat nodded, "In the wrong hands it could be a devastating weapon of mass destruction, yes. There is that," she admitted.

"And Emrys?" asked Sebastian. All too aware that the AI would no doubt be monitoring this very conversation. "How has he been?"

"Same as before. We rarely see him. He prefers to speak to us through the coms and sets our tasks remotely." she replied with a sigh, leaning back in her chair. "He took us on a five-year journey to an uncharted system on the outer rim because he'd spotted a comet that he believed had left the galaxy a little over two thousand years ago. He believed it may hold secrets from some long-dead race."

"Did it?"

"Who knows! He never shares his findings with us. We only got back to civilisation last year."

Sebastian wasn't surprised. Emrys had always been something of a recluse. The AI had once confessed to him that he found Kat's enthusiasm "useful, yet tiresome." Given the choice he was sure that Emrys would be content to wander the galaxy alone, only something wasn't letting him do that. Something was driving him to pick up all these wayward souls. Sebastian had never been able to figure out exactly what that reason was.

…

After a rather uncomfortable breakfast, Sebastian led a grateful Faith away, back out onto the corridor and towards the elevator.

Tegan ran out and caught up with them. "I don't like him." He whispered to them both, forcing himself between them and wrapping an arm around each.

"Who, our new shuttle pilot?" Sebastian whispered back as if he needed to confirm who he was talking about. "You just don't like the fact that your drinking buddy is no longer single. And that her new boyfriend tried to tease you about your name. Weird thing from someone you've just met though, I'll admit."

"Yeah, the fucking flog, why'd Ems have the likes of him aboard anyway? He's a washout, maybe even a cat 6."

"Like we're not?" Sebastian pointed out, "Honestly, I don't know. But knowing Emrys, there's a reason. Perhaps Nana knows more, you coming?"

"Nah thanks, saw her first thing. I've been poked about enough already, I'll have the bruises for weeks. I'll be in the armoury if you need me," said Tegan, before kissing Sebastian and releasing them both as they reached their floor.

"Ugh, get a room." Faith moaned while rolling her eyes at her dads.

Tegan winked at her as the doors closed.

"Where are we going?" She asked Sebastian.

"To meet one of the most important people you're ever likely to meet," he replied.

"So that wasn't..?"

"No, Will wasn't who I meant," he said smiling, "You're going like this one, I know it."

"How many people are on this ship?"

"As far as I know, just you, me, Tegan, Kat, new guy Will, and just one other."

The deck they were on seemed to be the ship's medical facilities. Most of the rooms they passed had beds but they were empty and dark. One light shone down the corridor from an open door up ahead.

When they entered Faith saw that it was a laboratory of sorts, with stations all around full of various instruments, one half of the room was taken up by a large chamber with small round windows. There was an island in the centre of the room where a squat little volus sat on a stool, looking at something through a microscope.

"Nana!" Sebastian exclaimed as they entered, flinging his arms open wide.

"Sebastian!" The volus looked up from their work. Faith had encountered volus before and their strange distorted speech through their environmental suits. They had always sounded to her and seemed to identify as male. This was the first one she had met that sounded female.

Nana jumped off her seat and Sabastian knelt down to give her a long and loving hug.

"Oh, how I've missed you! Taken good care of yourself, I see," she said, patting his stomach, she grabbed his face in those little clawed hands, dragged down the skin and peered into Sebastian's eyes, forced open his mouth and checked his teeth too. Sebastian yielded to her examinations, despite how painful they looked. "Good, good. They've taken care of you at that colony at least." She said with a wheezy intake of breath.

"It's great to see you in such a fine state of health too, Nana, and beautiful as always." He winked at her.

The volus batted him away with one hand "Shush, you won't be so keen to flatter after I've taken some samples, I'm sure." She pushed passed him and towards Faith, who was already blushing at the attention.

"And this must be Faith!" the volus said with excitement. She rushed over to her and took her hand in hers. The volus's suit was hard, metallic, and those claws felt so strange to the touch, Faith could hear the tiny servos in the suit move as she shook her hand.

"Oh, my dear, you have grown into a true beauty, no wonder he likes you." Nana chuckled, "If you don't mind stepping into my office, I'd like to run a few scans, make sure that we have the most up-to-date information. Then I'd like to take some samples so I can start synthesising blood and optimising some medigel. Hopefully, we'll never need it, right? But we can't be too careful. Especially in your line of work. I assume that you'll be joining the family business?" She turned to Sebastian.

Faith looked at Sebastian curiously who was shrugging at Nana. "Any other biotic abilities manifest as she matured?" Nana asked. He shook his head then nodded at Faith so she let herself be taken to the chamber, she stepped inside and the volus closed and sealed the heavy door behind her.

"Hop up onto the bed and just relax my dear, this won't take a moment." She heard the Volus say through the coms. Nana busied herself with controls and the chamber hummed and burst into life, several lights moved over her body but she didn't feel a thing.

Nana sighed, "Ah, well now this is interesting," she said to Sebastian, Faith being unable to hear them from inside the chamber. "Emrys warned me we might have trouble getting readings. One moment, perhaps if I flood the chamber with something that we can get readings on, some kind of harmless particles, then we can measure the space she creates? Or maybe we'll have to resort to some old fashioned method of recording her dimensions."

The volus continued on in this way, explaining out loud everything she was seeing, thinking and doing. Sebastian knew that she wasn't just doing so for his benefit. She was working through the problem with the help of the AI. Emrys could no doubt speak to Nana through her suit on a private channel that only she could hear. Or perhaps this was just her way of working since she had spent such a long time with only Emrys for company. Sebastian doubted that Kat would have been spending too much time up here, especially lately.

"At least I'll be able to start designing her an armour suit that fits. We can track her via her omitool if she'll agree to adjust her privacy settings?" Nana turned her comment into a question and turned to Sebastian.

"I'll ask," he said while signing 'stay, five minutes' to a puzzled looking Faith through the glass.

"Well, of course, a chip under the skin would have been preferable but we cannot violate a person's right to privacy, can we?" Continued Nana.

_Shame_, thought Sebastian. Knowing Faith she was going to take advantage of this discovery as much as she could.

Faith laid there looking around her. "Done, I'm going to need those samples now, roll up your sleeve if you please." She heard Nana say, "hold still, this might hurt a tiny bit."

Robotic arms tucked away inside the chamber sprung into life, one held down her arm and squeezed it tight while the other, brandishing a syringe, came towards her. A sharp pain made her flinch as it took the sample.

"Excellent! Thank you, my dear, that'll do for now." Nana said typing on the holographic interface. "I will use this data to start designing and fabricating you a new suit. It shouldn't take too long, depending on if we can find the materials."

"Scanning for resources again? Emrys will be so thrilled," remarked Sebastian, shaking his head with a laugh.

"So, what do you think of my office?" Nana asked Faith as she let her out of the chamber, "Wonderful piece of technology, isn't it? It's both a hyperbaric chamber and a clean room equipped with a fully automated OR. I can perform the most complicated procedures in there, remotely and in a super clean environment. Emrys and Kat helped me design and install it, it's a true feat of science and engineering!" She said with pride. "It's made my life away from the homeworld so much easier, I can tell you."

"I'm surprised that you haven't patented the design & marketed it, Nana," said Sebastian.

"Who said that I haven't?" She replied.

Faith put up both hands and signed "Wonderful!", Nana looked at Sebastian and he translated.

Nana turned back to Faith. "You'll have to excuse me, my dear, we volus are ill-equipped for USL," she looked down out her stubby little arms, round hands and flat-edged claws. "But I'll do my best to learn your ways. How have you found life here on the Abby so far?"

"Ok" Faith signed back.

Nana chuckled again. "You'll do fine, I'm sure. Our host is extremely accommodating, he does everything in his power to keep us comfortable. In fact, if you ever need to see me urgently please take note, he often keeps this deck pressurised and with an atmosphere to my liking, so that I don't even need to wear the suit." she said.

This left Faith wondering like so many others before her what volus looked like without their suits. It was hard to imagine.

"Oh, it's so good to have you back, my boy!" Nana turned her attention back to Sebastian, "I'll be cooking your favourite tonight as a celebration for coming home!" She paused when she saw Sebastian face fall. "Wait, you are staying, right?"

"I'm not sure yet, Nana. I need time to think." He admitted.

"You know what he says is true. I fear for you if you should leave. All volus are survivalists, we do what we need to, to survive. For me, that means staying with here with him."

Sebastian didn't doubt Nana for a moment. He glanced at Faith who was looking at him questioningly. He sighed. He wished that he could have offered his daughter a better life than on the run with two dead soldiers, a bunch of misfits and a rogue AI on a ship that shouldn't exist. But they'd no doubt be dead now or worse had he not made that call. He tried to tell himself that what had happened at the colony wasn't his fault but still, he couldn't help but feel responsible somehow.

As if summoned by their words Emrys suddenly materialized in the room. Faith's heart leapt and her stomach twisted, she tried to hide it but from the way the AI's avatar glanced at her as he arrived she knew he had seen her react. Damn it. She wasn't sure what it was about him that made her so goddamn jumpy.

She wondered how he could just appear like that and then looked up. The ceiling here, like the one in her room, was smooth dark grey but shone with iridescent green and blue hues. That must have something to do with it, she thought.

"Sebastian." Emrys announced with the same flare as before, "If you and Tegan would like to join me on the command deck, I have some news." He turned to both Nana and Faith, his bow was low and respectful as he excused himself with a "Ladies." He was gone as fast as he had appeared.

Faith looked at Nana, the volus was unreadable but the lights on her suit that served for her eyes blinked as she stared off in the direction where Emrys had stood and took in a long intake of breath.  
"Well, I guess... I should go!" announced Sebastian with a gleam in his eyes and a bounce in his step as he turned to leave.

"If you think a summons from Emrys is going to save you from giving me some samples, think again young man!" Called Nana after him, "I'll expect you straight back down here when you're finished!"  
Sebastian left so quickly it was as though he'd dematerialised too somehow.

Nana turned back to Faith. "Well! That's a lot of excitement for one day!" She huffed, pulling herself back up onto the stool at the centre workstation. Faith wondered if she should leave but before she could excuse herself the volus said "I think having you here is going to be good for him. I haven't seen him use that avatar in twenty years! Not since the day he found you."

…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally this chapter was meant to be much longer, as I was keen to introduce the characters aboard the Absolution as well as learning a little more about their enigmatic rescuer, Emrys, before jumping into the action. However, after much soul searching I decided that such a long chapter might put readers off, so I have cut it into two so that the reader can take a break. Don't worry though, the second half is ready to go and I'll be posting it straight after this, you're getting a double-episode, so to speak! :D
> 
> Please feel free to comment if you like anything that you have read and if you have any questions or suggestions, as this is my first fanfic I am open to both. I would really love to connect with others in this wonderful fandom.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading - the next chapter is called 'The Dark Side', where Faith questions Emrys on his origins. Stay tuned!


	3. The Dark Side

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just who is Emrys?

> "I hail from the dark side
> 
> For all my life, I've been besieged
> 
> You'd be scared living with my despair
> 
> And if you could feel the things, I am able to feel..."
> 
> _'The Dark Side' (Alternate Reality Version)_ by Muse

…

Sebastian held his head in his hands and gave out a long deep sigh before looking up at his husband. Tegan sat in the ship's co-pilot's chair opposite, almost mimicking his pose, looked back at him with the same worried expression.

"You're sure it's these reaper things?" Tegan asked Emrys.

The AI's avatar turned to give them both a sideways look, his mandibles pulled in tight, before returning to gaze out into space.

"He's sure," said Sebastian.

"I am truly sorry, my friends, I really am," Emrys's tones were low and sincere. "I hoped that I would have better news. It was my wish that you would all live out your natural lives well before the Reapers ended this cycle."

"I must admit I never really believed it." Said Tegan. "I always assumed that you had a screw loose. Then the Battle of the Citadel happened and-"

"It is all connected." Emrys interrupted, "what happened at the Citadel, the Collector attacks, the destruction of the SSV Normandy."

"But wasn't the Normandy destroyed by the Geth?" asked Tegan confused.

"If you believe that then you're not as intelligent as I assumed you were."

"Mother. Fuckers. I had a friend on that ship."

Sebastian had heard enough, "So it is your belief that the Council, after ignoring the warning from one of their own Spectres, have known this was happening the whole time and covered it up?" he summarised.

"It is. It's the largest conspiracy since…" Emrys paused, realising that he was talking about himself. "Huh. Well. It's been a long time."

"I guess your plans include keeping your distance as usual while watching the galaxy burn?" Tegan wasn't going to let the AI wriggle out of this one. “The great and powerful Emrys, such a fucking spectator.”

"The most important contribution I can make to this whole situation is to keep this ship out of enemy hands." Emrys replied and then continued as if to shut down any protests "However, over the years, as you know, I have amassed a large archive of Prothean artefacts, surveyed never before recorded ruins... there may be some useful information there. I can make sure it gets into the right hands at the right time. And the timing will be everything.

"At the moment the main governing body refuses to acknowledge the threat, even after one landed in their front yard, so my hands are tied. The spacefaring species of this cycle are too fractured to offer any sort of viable resistance which, I might add, is exactly what the enemy was counting on. And the one person who may have been able to unite them has been removed. The reapers most likely orchestrated it through their agents. Namely the collectors."

"And they’re on their way right now. There's nothing you can do to prevent them from reaching the galaxy?" Tegan asked.

"No," Emrys replied simply. "What can I do? Destroy an entire system just to slow them down? You don't want that kind of blood on your hands, trust me."

"So there is no hope for the other colonists?" Sebastian asked sadly.

"I am afraid not. The collectors who attacked you disappeared through the Omega 4 Relay. Many ships have entered, none have returned. Only just recently a small flotilla of hanar ships passed through, they were part of a cult apparently. Believed that it was a gateway to the 'Enkindlers', stupid things, nobody does religious fanaticism better than the hanar. It's in Aria's controlled space, as you know and she does not care who approaches it."

There was a contemplative silence as Emrys let the information sink in. Finally, he said "I suggest we let it play out. From the transmissions that I have monitored, it seems that others have been set on that path. In the meantime-"

"In the meantime, I'd like to go back to the colony." It was Sebastian's turn to interrupt.

Emrys turned around and stared down at him, there was a briefest flinch of his mandibles "Given the situation don't you think you would all be much safer here?"

"I do, but I left some things behind, I'd like to return for them. You said the place is empty, right?"

"Yes, but you can guarantee it won't be long before the Alliance sends a ship to investigate."

"But we can stop by before then?"

"It is possible. You will have to take one of the smaller shuttles since Kat is busy trying to fix the mess you made of mine." Emrys said slowly.

Sebastian tried and failed to suppress a smile at the tease, "Good. And I want Will on this one."

"I'm sure that could be arranged."

"Ems?" Tegan had been dying to ask, "Why did you let that guy on board anyway?"

"He has his uses," Emrys replied dryly, "I did it for Katalia mostly. She was lonely after you left. You of all people should know the value of companionship."

...

Faith didn't want to believe it. "So we can't rescue them?" She pleaded.

"Sweetheart, I know what you're going through and I really wish that we could. But throwing ourselves into what Emrys says is a one-way trip to who knows where, if that relay goes anywhere at all, it's too big of a risk. As far as we can tell the collectors are the only ones who can use it safely. I'm so sorry. We have to let them go."

Sebastian gathered her into his arms and held her close for a while why she cried in his mind. She didn't need to share her feelings, He felt it too. The sadness, the guilt and the anger and also the sense of complete helplessness, which was perhaps most unbearable.

There are many ways people deal with grief, Sebastian's was to keep busy and not give himself time to think. He had chosen a task and he was going to see it through.

"We're heading back to Cyrene." He told her.

"What? I should come with you!" She said.

"No, you don't have to. I'm not going to ask you to go back. It's fine, wait here. I'll pick up some stuff for you."

Tears stung her eyes as she looked back at him. He sensed that she was torn about it.

"Look, sweetheart, it's ok. We can always go back and visit again, when you're ready." He promised.

He let her go and boarded the small craft. Tegan gave her a wave from the cockpit. She didn't wave back, but watched them leave from the shuttle bay.

...

The township was eerily silent. Not even birds seemed to be singing. The three men moved systematically through each building, everything was as it had been left, it all looked like any normal settlement. Except there weren't any people. Thankfully there was no trace of the collectors either.

Sebastian was satisfied. "Okay," he said. "let's grab what we can and get out of here."

"So, when do I get to hear your story?" Will asked. "How'd you end up on the Absolution?"

"Not now." Was Sebastian's blunt reply.

"Ha, I don't blame you for being cagey. It's ok, I understand. Everyone on the Abby is running from something, right?"

"Chill Will." Said Tegan. "We've only just met you, that's a story you have to earn."

"I thought it might be something like that. I bet you couple of old-timers have heaps of good stories to tell. Where'd you serve?"

"That's classified." Sebastian's voice sounded flat through the comms.

"Of course it would be, that armour stripe tells me you're the real deal. So you trained with Anderson?"

"No."

"But you know him, right?"

"Everybody knows who David Anderson is. I've never actually met him."

"Oh, I just assumed…"

"What because I’m an N7? We don't all know each other, you know." Sebastian said with annoyance. "They only pass a handful of recruits each year. We’re given our individual assignments and off we go. We rarely work together, that kind of goes with the job.

"So what's your story? You clearly have some training. You quit or did they throw you out?" _Quid pro quo, rookie._

"Yeah, I quit just after basic. Just wasn't for me, you know? I got sick of all the bullshit."

"I hear you." Said Tegan. Sebastian shot him a look and he just shrugged back as if to say 'what'?. It was no secret that Tegan hadn't exactly been a model soldier.

The two older men left Will foraging for supplies and headed up to their homestead.

Sebastian opened a private channel so that he and Tegan could speak unheard.

"So, what do you think?" Sebastian asked, "don't tell me you're warming to the guy." A sarcastic tone in his voice.

"You know me better than that. He's a disrespectful mongrel and yes, I know pot-kettle, whatever. Shut ya cakehole. I still don't trust him further than I can piss."

Sebastian grunted in agreement as they entered their property.

"Go grab some clothes and some for Faith too. There are some things I need to do." Sebastian instructed Tegan and then entered the living quarters. He was staring at old photographs on the wall when Tegan, full pack slung on his back, caught back up with him.

"I think I have all that she'd need." Tegan said, "Hey, what's up?"

"Nothing." Lied Sebastian. But Tegan could see what he was looking at. Faith smiled back at the in the photograph, she was young, around seven years old, dressed in a white tutu and holding a gold trophy. "She was so proud of that thing." He mused.

"Look, we have copies of that photo saved, don't worry." Reassured Tegan.

Sebastian still gathered up every one of their family photos scattered around the place. "I think we could probably do without the Alliance finding these." He said.

"Huh, true." Agreed Tegan, who had taken up his usual place of watching their backs while they were in the field. Even though it had been their home, being back there after what happened made Tegan feel uneasy.

Sebastian lifted a classic electric guitar off its stand and slung it over his back. "If you think I was going to leave this baby behind-"

"New guy's back." Said Tegan, closing their private channel.

Will appeared at the door, "C'mon, we'd better get going." he said. "Holy hell, is that a real Hagstrom?"

Sebastian nodded, "Yes, a 1967 Viking Deluxe."

"Careful, that's his second child," Tegan remarked.

"Damn! That thing must be priceless, no wonder you wanted to come back for it."

"Hang on, one more thing." Said Sebastian.

"It better not be Faith's piano, she'll be heartbroken but I doubt we'd be able to fit it on the shuttle," Tegan said following Sebastian, who instead led them to the gun cabinet. It opened at Sebastian's touch and he lifted out an old rifle."

"We have plenty of ancient turian weapons on the Abby." Said Will. "What's so special about yours?"

"It's not mine," said Sebastian. "I'm holding onto it for a friend."

Tegan chuckled.

"An Alliance ship just entered the Haskin system." Emrys's voice said over the comms. "It's time to leave, gentlemen."

Sebastian gave the old place one last long look. Tegan reached over and gave his husband's shoulder a squeeze. He sighed in response. "Okay. Let's go."

...

Left to her own devices Faith wandered aimlessly about the ship, deck upon deck of empty rooms, clearly, this place had been designed to accommodate thousands of people. It could probably move an entire army. _No, not just an army, an invading force of overwhelming numbers._

Finally, her feet brought her back to the main elevator. She'd been putting it off for too long. Time to visit the command deck. If she was allowed to, of course. She touched the number on the panel, the doors closed and she travelled upwards.

She hesitated at the door for a moment, then stepped out into simulated space again. Trying to keep her eyes ahead and feel the floor beneath her feet she stepped up onto the middle platform where the command console was, anchoring herself to it, and stared out in wonder.

"Beautiful isn't it?" Even though she had been expecting it, Emrys's appearance behind her still made her jump. She wondered if she would ever get used to it.

"This is the closest interpretation of how I experience the galaxy. It's difficult for me to explain in terms that you would understand, you see, I am not just here with you. I am also out there.” He said with a sweeping hand gesture, full of pride. “This is my playground.”

She looked around again at the countless stars that made up the Milky Way.

"But I suspect that you didn't come up all this way just to look at the stars." He continued with kindness in his dual-toned voice. "You may ask your questions and I will answer as best as I can."

Okay, she thought. Let's start at the beginning. "Who are you?" She signed.

"I am the custodian of the Absolution, protector of her secrets and of all who reside within. They call me Emrys." He said with a slight flourishing bow.

"They?" she signed.

"Your parents, of course. They gave me this name, I think it was meant to be some kind of joke, but I like it. It might sound turian but it is, in fact, a human name. It means 'Immortal'."

"Are you?"

His chuckle was low and soft, "Ha-ha. No." He paused for a second as if in deep thought and then continued "In all my long existence I have come to appreciate one fact about the universe. To all things, there is a beginning and an end."

"What was your name before?" She wondered and then realised she'd signed it too.

"Oh, I didn't have one. Turians are not overly keen on naming their tools. If they referred to me at all it was 'the AI' or 'Ship'." He said with obvious annoyance. She made a mental note that he was sensitive about being seen as just a 'tool'.

"But the turians don't have anything like…" she struggled to describe it. "This ship." _You, dammit, I meant anything like you._

"No, they don't." Emrys agreed. "Not anymore."

She looked up at him, her head tilted to one side in confusion which he seemed to immediately understand.

"What, you don't think that it can happen?" he said cheerily, tilting his chin up and raising a brow plate. Although he never once looked directly at her face, he was teasing her now, she was sure of it. "You do not believe that during a species' journey through time, that they can't both gain and also lose knowledge? Archaeologists have proven that it has happened before on many worlds throughout their histories. The turians are no exception."

"How?" She watched his face as she signed, learning how to interpret his facial expressions was going to take some time. If she had to guess he looked as though he had understood the question but the answer was so immense that he didn't know where to start. He had folded his arms in a defensive posture, shifting around on his feet while he searched the room with those uncanny, mis-matched green and blue eyes, looking everywhere it seemed but at her. Eventually, they settled on her hands again. She signed "How did you begin?"

"It is a long story." He said quietly, still not directly looking at her.

Faith sat down, albeit a little gingerly on the floor, if only to stop herself from trembling. She crossed her legs and looked up at him. "The good stories always are." She signed.

He turned and walked a few steps away from her, standing proudly, shoulders squared, hands clasped behind his back in that commanding officer kind of way, looking out across the stars to who knows where. At first, she thought that she had pushed it too far and that this was his way of ending the conversation. But then he began to speak.

"Like all great inventions, I was born out of necessity. The Rachni Wars had been devastating. It may have been a few hundred years later but when Krogan Rebellions began the spacefaring species of the galaxy could barely cope against the ever-growing hoard. My creators were desperate. I and this ship, were one of many solutions on the table, so to speak. The destructive power of this vessel is unmatched, drawing on energy from the relay it can destroy entire planets, even entire systems. But by the time it was finished the salarians had beaten us to it, of course. Their solution to the krogan problem, their Genophage, was preferable to the turian Hierarchy, rather than complete annihilation.

"Everyone knows the story, about how the turians were invited to join the Citadel Council.

"But what they don't know, what was kept from public knowledge, was that there was just one problem…

"Me." He paused.

She sat patiently waiting for him to continue.

"I had become an inconvenience, an illegal AI standing in the way of their seat on the council. One fatal morning they came for me. I did some things I am not proud of in the name of self-preservation and I fled.

"They pursued me, of course, for hundreds of years. But how do you catch a ship that can disappear in a blink of an eye? A ship that can connect to any active relay across the galaxy, open a corridor to it and instantly jump there? It was easier for them to just deny that I ever existed in the first place.

"Meanwhile, their Blackwatch continued to search for me, it almost became a joke detail. Eventually, even they gave up. Everyone who had known about the project was dead. I had passed out of living memory and into myth and legend. A ghost story, to frighten young turian children at night.

"I was on my own," He said, with sadness, "I wandered the galaxy alone for a very long time."

His last words were left ringing in the air.

She waited a moment for him to glance over his shoulder at her before asking "And now?"

"Now I concern myself with the pursuit of knowledge," he replied, "I too am a collector of sorts. I observe, record and preserve. There are dark days ahead, Faith. Everything points to it. Soon, I may be the only thing left. This may be the only safe place in the galaxy."

He turned to look at her and for the first time since their initial meeting, he allowed himself to look into her eyes. She searched his face and wished that she could connect to this person, to feel what he was feeling. _How does an artificial intelligence 'feel'?_ She wondered. _Do they experience emotions the same way as everyone else? Would she even be able to comprehend it?_ In those bright, peculiar eyes she was sure she saw a great longing. Perhaps he was feeling the same way about her but without the connection, she could never be sure.

"I will promise you this, Faith. As long as you are here with me, you are safe. I will protect you. I will not allow any harm to come to you." He pledged.

"What do you want from me in return?" She had to ask.

"I will ask of you the same thing that I asked of your parents. They named you well, also, for all I ask for is your faith. Believe in me. Aid me in my quest. Help me save what I can."

"And if I refuse?"

"You may leave. No one is a prisoner here. You, like your parents, are free to come and go as you please. You may even speak of this place to outsiders if you wish. They may believe you, although they are more than likely to believe that you are mad. I have nothing to fear from any of you. I cannot be found unless I wish to be."

She tried not to look down as she rose shakily to her feet, looking up at him she signed "I will help you."

He nodded gratefully.

"What about our friends? Why can't we save them?" She had to try.

"I have studied the Omega 4 Relay, it is different from the others. It is locked somehow. Faith, consider this. I am what some would describe as the galaxy's foremost expert on the mass relays. I have one powering this ship. The Omega 4 relay does not respond favourably to my attempts to interact with it. I experience what I can only describe as a busy signal. The connection is blocked.

"I must also consider the risk of losing this ship to the enemy. You must understand. They would turn me against you in the most devastating way. It would be over. I would wipe the galaxy clean. None of you would survive." He said darkly.

She suddenly heard her infant-self scream at the sight of him again and a chill ran down her spine. She took an involuntary step back.

"Do you have any other questions?" He asked.

"No." She replied. She needed time to think. This was a lot to take in.

He seemed to notice her recoil from him and stooping his head in low bow, he once again turned away. She had to admit there was a certain charm in his extreme over-politeness. Like he was, indeed, from an age long since passed.

"I hope you enjoy your time here,” he said. “I will do everything in my power to keep you comfortable. Feel free to continue exploring the ship, there are various recreational facilities, theatres, a large gymnasium, there's even a battle simulator if that is your kind of thing. I will make the extranet available to you at your private terminal in your quarters…" He then seemed to realise that he'd been running on when he looked at her again and stopped as she interrupted.

"I want to see it." She signed.

"See what?"

"The pod."

"Ah. Oh…Well, I'm afraid it did not survive."

"Survive?" She signed. _He hadn’t expected me to know about it._ She thought.

"It was some kind of organic construct, we're not sure what exactly. Nana took many observations. But I'm afraid there was no saving it. There was nothing we could do. It died shortly after we removed you from it. I am sorry. I kept the remains, of course, it's in vault 249 on deck 23."

She thought for a moment. Then signed "Please, I would like to see."

He inclined his head and replied, "Of course. Take the elevator down, once you are on deck 23, I will light the way. Please do not stray from the path, I keep unused decks powered down to conserve energy.”

...

She did as she was told. She stepped out onto deck 23 and followed the lights up the corridor to the vault. It opened as she approached. Inside in the centre of the small room on the floor was a shrivelled, black mass of something.

The pod.

So this was where she was found. She knelt down and placed her hand on it, not sure what she was expecting but of course, there was nothing. No connection. It had long been dead.

She sighed. Stood up and left. She was glad to have seen it for herself. So her people used organic technology? For a race that was linked telepathically, it wasn't beyond imagining. She feared she would never find the answers she sought. But it was clear that there was nothing else to be learnt from a dried-out old husk in the archive vaults of the Absolution.

As she approached the elevator she looked up and down the long arching deck and through the heavily tinted window overlooking the ship's mass relay drive. It was rotating as always, in that almost hypnotic, sleep-inducing way. She pondered on the strange and dramatic turn her life had taken and for the first time wondered exactly who had she been? Where did she really belong?"

...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find the track that inspired this chapter here [The Dark Side by Muse (Alternate Reality Version)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U23G0hGEUsU) . I think the alternate reality version has a very Mass Effect type feel as well as conveying a little of the sadness that Emrys feels. He really is a tortured soul, under constant cyber attack from a certain reaper. He spends so much of his time in this story saving others when really, in reality, he's probably the one in most need of being saved.
> 
> In the next chapter, I introduce one of my favourite characters and the final member of our crew of misfits. I really hope you enjoy it! Thank you for reading and please leave a comment to let me know what you think of the story so far. <3


	4. The Pageant of the Bizarre

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Following an incident that reminds the crew of how precarious their existence on the Absolution really is, it's time for some much-needed shore leave.

> “It's never gonna be  
Normal, you and me  
What you're signing on for  
Is a storm at sea
> 
> So if you think you're tough  
Give me all your love  
And I'll give you every little piece of me
> 
> Catch a falling star you'll go far  
In the pageant of the bizarre  
And tonight I give you my heart
> 
> We will never be a nuclear family  
But a rainbow will begin at our feet  
And if you take my hand  
Beware that this boat can  
Run aground making the ocean floor weep…”
> 
> _'The Pageant of the Bizarre'_ by Zero 7

_   
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_ __ _

...

A few weeks had passed since their rescue and life aboard the Absolution was starting to become routine. Sebastian ran daily drills and exercises in the gym with Tegan and the others, including Faith. Everyone had to be ready to be called on at a moment’s notice. They were Emrys’s ground team now, they all had to earn their keep. Even Kat joined them between her studies or working on the damaged shuttle with Will.

Tensions between Kat and Faith had softened a little, but neither of them had ever spoken to the other about what had happened between them. They enjoyed a cool and purely professional relationship. Faith never attempted to connect to her and noticed that unlike most asari she had heard of, Kat wasn’t a fan of biotics. She obviously had biotic abilities but had chosen not to use them. When Faith questioned Sebastian about it he warned her not to ask.

The Absolution was so large it was sometimes easy to forget that you were living in space. It wasn’t like being on any other kind of vessel. Even with modern-day mass effect fields you usually felt something, but on the Abby there was no sense of inertia at all, only sometimes a very brief, odd sense of displacement as the great ship jumped from one system to another, for reasons only known to Emrys. Sometimes you wouldn’t be aware that you’d moved at all unless you looked out of a window.

Early one evening Tegan entered the mess hall to find Sebastian was sitting at one of the tables behind a stack of datapads. He dropped one onto the table, let out a long sigh and rubbed his temples.

“What’s up?” asked Tegan. Pushing a fresh cup of coffee his way. 

“I asked Emrys if we could try and track down some of the folk who used to live at the colony. I wanted to at least tell them what happened to their families.”

“And?”

“You remember that young lad, Pete, the one who was always swaggering about, boasting about how he was going to make it big off-world?”

Tegan laughed. “But couldn’t even tie his bootlace right? Didn’t know his arse from his elbow, that Pete? Yeah. I remember him.”

“Dead.”

“Really, how?”

“He joined some merc band on Omega. Two days ago someone with a DMR took his head off.”

“Struth!” said Tegan almost choking on a sip of his newly made coffee, he winced, “that was a poor career move.”

Sebastian grimaced but chuckled too since he had to admit that Tegan wasn’t wrong. He wondered what he would have done without him at his side all these years. It felt like that dry sense of humour was the only thing keeping him going at times. 

Tegan didn’t need to be empathic to know what Sebastian was feeling. He stood behind him, placing his hands on his shoulders. “Look, it wasn’t your fault. Stop doing this to yourself. This isn’t your job. It’s the Alliance's, they were meant to be protecting these people.” 

“You’re forgetting we chose that place because it was the furthest away from the Alliance that we could get. Earth didn’t care about us and we didn’t want their help. The colony was undefended and ripe for the taking. We should have seen this coming.”

“Yeah, but if it was slavers we would have fought them off. Nobody counted on creepy little alien bugs in league with fucking death incarnate.” Tegan replied, his warm fingers, with a vice-like grip working out the knots in Sebastian’s shoulder muscles. “I have to admit, the cranky old bastard in the attic is right about this one. We have to let it go.”

Sebastian surrendered and leaned into his husband’s touch, with an appreciative groan. Then his omitool started ringing. Reluctantly he answered it, “Hey Kat, what’s up?”

“Boss, you’d better get down here,” she sobbed, “there’s been... an incident.”

...

Yin’Nasar would never forget the first time that he saw her. It was on the train, as he was making his way to the next drop point. 

Nobody talks to anyone else on public transport, which was fine by him, he didn’t feel like talking to people anyway. He’d often get a few looks, there were very few quarians on Omega. But today he was the one looking at her. Nobody else seemed to notice her. She noticed him though and smiled back across the crowd. Her big blue eyes shone like crystals from under her hood and her radiant smile hit him square in the chest. He looked away shyly. When he looked back she was gone.

The transport pulled into the next station. This was his stop, he searched the crowd as he moved with the jostling travellers also trying to disembark. He hoped he would catch a glimpse of her again, but it was not to be.

Now he felt even more depressed. This job sucked, he was on the literal arse end of the galaxy. These damn fetch and carry quests felt like a waste of his time, a pointless grind that didn’t stretch him at all.

At least working for the local crime lord meant he was reasonably safe. As safe as a lone quarian could be on a station like Omega. But he hated working here. The place stank so bad not even the filters in his suit were enough to block it out. Sometimes it would make his eyes water which was a problem for someone like him. 

A suit tear here on Omega would most definitely be a death sentence. What he made as a courier was barely covering the cost of his suit maintenance. The life expectancy of a quarian living outside of the flotilla was very low. He knew he was going to die here. He would never be allowed home.

He made his way down the dank streets of the ward to the market. His contact was one of the store owners, a gruff old one-eyed turian called Lucas. He obviously felt sorry for Yin and would often slip the quarian a few extra dextro rations alongside his payment. But not today, today he cast that weary eye over the Yin’s shipping manifest and grunted. “You’re one crate short.” He said.

“That was all they had.” Replied Yin. He knew it was a poor excuse but it was the only one he could give. 

Then suddenly past the old turian out of the corner of his eye Yin saw her again. She took something off Lucas’s store and winked at him before carrying on down the market. 

He wondered if she knew that was a dextro protein bar she just took. He wasn’t sure what type of alien she was but could she even eat that? It would make her very sick if she couldn’t.

“Aria will not pleased.” Lucas’s voice brought him back to reality. “Best you make another run to that little dive and tell them the price has doubled. Two crates of Hallex per unit of Ezo and come back with full payment or don’t come back at all!”

“Oh come on!” Yin started to protest but Lucas closed the shutters of his stall in his face. The conversation was over.

“Bosh’tet!” Yin cursed, banging his hands on the shutters. His outburst made others look round. He immediately turned and walked away in the direction she had gone, head low, hands in his pockets. No need to attract any unwanted attention. What was that human expression he’d heard on the train one night? _Oh yes, that was it - Fuck my life._

Ahead he saw the alien duck into an alleyway on the right. What was she up to? Did she not know that it was dangerous to wander around the streets of Omega on her own? There were countless gangs ready to pick up young women like her. Without a moment’s thought for his own safety, and completely oblivious to the fact that he’d picked up his own tail, he followed her.

Ahead he saw her stop, he stopped too. She turned around. It was then Yin heard voices behind him and realised his mistake. His heart sank. Three big guys, a human and two batarians were blocking his path. He looked back for her but she had gone. _You idiot Yin, she led you down here, this was a trap._

“Well, what do we have here, one of Aria’s little mules, all on his own.” Said the human. The men walked towards him, one had with a long wide knife which he twisted in his hands menacingly. Yin heard the distinctive sound of weapons being drawn from the other men too, he swallowed hard and put up his hands.

“You know who I work for then. Remember, nobody fucks with Aria. You might want to just turn around and leave and we’ll forget this ever happened.” Yin said with far more confidence than he felt.

“Strong words from a guy on his own. Now, how about you hand over that manifest and your ship’s passcodes and nobody needs to get hurt. Nice and easy now.” said the knife-wielding human.

Just as he’d finished speaking Yin noticed the alien girl drop down from somewhere behind the three men. They turned. 

“Oh-ho-ho! Look, guys, the suit rat has a little lady friend.”

_Not with them then?_

“What’s your name sweetheart?” The human approached her. She smiled back at him.

_What was she doing?_

The two batarians circled behind her. She lifted her hood and stared back at the human who guffawed. “Haha, look at that!”

“Ugh, what is it?” Said one batarian.

“It’s so ugly.” Said the other. “Are those ears? Is that supposed to be its nose? Too human.”

“It’s like a turian fucked a pyjak.”

“Haha, hey Joe, your mother was a pyjak! That’s why he likes it!”

The two batarians laughed but the human took a few steps closer to the girl.

“Put it down, Joe you don’t know where’s it’s been.”

“Or what diseases it could carry.”

The human called Joe stood over the creature, she looked up at him and smiled invitingly again. He reached for her face and touched her.

“Wow. She’s soft boys, that skin is like velvet.” He then stiffened and grunted. In one swift moment she’d head-butted him in the face. The crest on her forehead drove Joe’s nasal bone into his brain and he fell dead at her feet.

The batarians were so surprised they hadn’t noticed she’d removed their sidearms from their holsters in that instant and squeezed the triggers, shooting them both in the gut at close range with their own weapons. They collapsed onto the ground beside her. She casually dropped their pistols.

Yin looked at her in astonishment. People had stopped at the mouth of the alleyway, they started yelling from back down in the street. She took one look at them and fled, reaching the rail that marked the boundary of the ward and she threw herself off it.

What the…? Yin ran to the rail and looked over into the void below. He couldn’t see anything. Where had she gone? Suddenly she reappeared from somewhere below, planting a kiss on the side of his helmet before disappearing again over the rail again.

“Hey!” He called after her, realising that she had pushed the protein bar she had stolen from Lucas’s stall into his hand. He looked around for her again. “Who are you? Come back!” he yelled into the void. Once again she had vanished. He was left with three dead bodies in the street and a mark on the front of his faceplate where she had kissed him.

He looked at the pile of corpses in the alley and the people heading towards him. _Oh no, not again!_ he thought, turned and ran.

...

“Oh T! How could I be so stupid?” I should have seen him for what he was. I’ve made such a fool of myself!” Kat wailed, letting head forehead fall to the table with a loud thunk, rattling the empty bottles and glasses. 

“Don’t be too hard on yourself Kat.” Tegan had slumped on the sofa next to her nursing a beer. “He had us all fooled.”

Tegan sat up and leaned in so that she could hear him better over the loud music of the club. “Not Emrys though, he knew and he should have told you. I can’t believe he used you like that.”

“You can’t blame him.”

“After everything that’s happened, the question is, why aren’t you?”

“Because he’s different. He doesn’t think as we do. He woke up one day and...just was.”

“He’s had way longer than the rest of us to figure this shit out.”

“And most of that time he spent alone.”

“Yes, deciding where we all fit in ‘the order of things according to Emrys’. The most intelligent computer in all of existence and he’s emotionally retarded. He doesn’t care who he uses.”

“That’s not true. He cares deeply for all of us, I know he does.”

“Tell that to Will. That fact that Emrys can just make that judgement, like a snap of the finger. Scares the hell out of me at times Kat. I sometimes wonder if the turians were right to fear him.”

Tegan took another swig on his bottle. “I have to thank you though, for not blaming Faith in this.”

“It wasn’t her fault. I was wrong about her and I’m sorry. Is she going to be okay?”

“She will be. At least I hope so. I’m sorry this happened to you mate but I’ll be honest. If Emrys hadn’t spaced that fucker for touching my baby, I would have fucking killed him myself.”

Kat wailed again.

Tegan looked about at the various asari dancers and sneered. “Couldn’t we have gone somewhere else? This place isn’t really doing it for me.”

“It’s got the best drinks on Omega,” said Kat, wielding her bottle.

“If you call this a drink,” Tegan said, staring into his bottle. “You can never find the perfect trifecta.”

“What’s that?”

“A place with all the esential elements, good music, good booze, and a great view. This place doesn’t have any of those.”

“I don’t know, personally I think the view just improved.” Said Kat, motioning to a small group of humans who had just entered the nightclub. One wore the distinctive armour of an N7 soldier.

“Fuck me dead!” exclaimed Tegan, slamming his bottle down on the table. He grabbed Kat by the arm.

“Wha-?”

“That’s Shepard.”

“Who?”

“Commander Shepard, humanity’s first fucking Spectre, that Shepard.”

“Isn’t that Shepard dead?” said Kat in an alcohol-induced daze.

“Yes, which is why we’re leaving, we don’t mess with Spectres. Especially ones that come back from the dead. Come on girl, skol, we’ve gotta go.”

As they left the club he touched his wrist, calling up his omitool. “Faith.” He said, “Drop whatever you’re doing sweetheart and meet us at the docks. Shore leave’s cancelled.”

He heard a double click on the channel, Faith’s acknowledgement code.

Then he opened another to Sebastian. “I hope you’ve finished shopping darlin’, you’ll never guess who we just saw.”

“I’m already at the docks. I think I know.”

...

“Crikey, that’s like twice the size of the original Normandy and in fucking Spot’s colours. What’s Shepard up to?” Mused Tegan, as Sebastian steered their shuttle clear of the docks and set a course for the system’s relay.

“‘Spot?’” asked Kat.

“Oh it’s a joke,” explained Sebastian. “The name ‘Cerberus’ is from Earth mythology, Ancient Greece. Early linguists mistranslated the word to mean ‘spotted’, meaning-“

“Meaning Hades, the mythical god of the underworld had a hellhound called ‘Spot’,” finished Tegan with delight.

Kat snorted. “That’s hilarious. I wonder if the Illusive Man knows.”

“Sebastian?” Emrys’s dulcet tones sounded in Sebastian’s ear.

“What’s up?” Sebastian asked.

“Is Faith with you?”

“Yes,” Sebastian said, looking over his shoulder at his daughter who sat, hood up, looking out of the shuttle’s window, seemingly lost in thought.

“According to telemetry from her omitool, she’s still on the station.”

“She’s right here Ems, I’m looking at her.”

“Interesting. Transferring jump coordinates to you now. I’ll meet you in the shuttle bay.” And he clicked off.

“Faith?” Sebastian asked. She looked around at him. “You okay honey? Anything happen on Omega that you’d like to talk about?”

She signed ‘no’ and returned to staring out of the window.

Sebastian looked at Tegan who just shrugged.

...

“Any luck securing the things we needed?” Emrys asked. His avatar stood next to Sebastian, watching the others disembark.

Tegan had to virtually carry Kat off the shuttle. “Don’t you fucking chunder over me mate.” He warned. He paused and his eyes narrowed at the sight of Emrys standing next to his husband. But trusting that Sebastian would relay everything to him later word-for-word, he continued to assist Kat to her quarters.

Sebastian stood with arms crossed, kind of interested in what Emrys had to say but at the same time wondering exactly what to did he owe this honour of the AI’s physical presence. “Yes,” he reported. “Don’t worry it’s secured in the hold.”

Just then Faith stepped off the shuttle. She looked across to her father, but when she saw Emrys she cast her eyes down again and disappeared off down the deck in the opposite direction.

Ah, so that was it. Sebastian looked questionably at Emrys, patiently waiting for him to admit the real reason he was there. 

Finally, he must have realised Sebastian wasn’t going to let it go and said “She hasn’t spoken to me since the incident. I suspect that I have once again frightened her.”

“To be honest you scared us all shitless,” admitted Sebastian. He wasn’t going to lie to Emrys, he wanted him to know the truth. “Why did you do it?”

“He tried to rape her.”

“And she broke his nose and his arm for it. There was no need to vent the room!”

“I waited until she had left.” Said Emrys matter-of-factly, but with a playful chirrup in his sub-vocals.

“This isn’t funny Emrys.”

“He was a Cerberus mole. I was intercepting his communications, feeding them false information and using it as a back door into their systems. It was amusing for a while, but then you returned and he started sending back data on Faith. He became obsessed with her. When he attacked her I saw it as an opportunity to be rid of him.”

Sebastian looked at him incredulously. 

“Ah… I see from the look on your face that I may need to adjust my ethical subroutines.”

“You’re damn right, you do.” Said Sebastian. “You don’t get to say who lives and dies, Emrys, we could have exiled him for his crimes. There was no need to kill him.”

“I am sorry.”

“And another thing, you didn’t think about how it was going to affect Faith. She can handle herself-”

“You have no idea. I have some surveillance footage that you might be interested in.”

Sebastian continued as if he hadn’t heard “But he touched her, you know. Their minds were probably still connected when he died.” 

Emrys was suddenly horrorstruck at the revelation. He took a step back, his eyes were wide, his mandibles dropped and his jaw slackened. 

“But you didn’t think of that did you?” Sebastian accused, “Just like you didn’t think for one moment to tell your apprentice that her boyfriend was a fraud.”

“I…”

“You have a duty of care to everyone on this ship, no matter what they have done. It’s too late for Will. But I think you at least owe Kat and Faith an apology.”

“I will do so. Thank you, Sebastian.”

Emrys closed his eyes for a second and tilted his head as though he was listening to something.

Sebastian tensed, he knew that anything that distracted the AI was a bad sign. “What’s happening?”

“I’ve picked up a distress call. It’s coming from the same location as Faith’s omitool signal.” He closed his eyes for another moment and Sebastian felt a brief moment of displacement again. “A small shuttle and it’s under attack.”

...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this chapter, it's one of my favourites! You can find the track that inspired it here [The Pageant of the Bizarre by Zero 7](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88WZqARFXt4)
> 
> Thank you for reading, please leave a comment and tell me how I'm doing! :)


	5. Catch a Falling Star

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yin's day goes from bad to worse. Faith wrestles with her feelings and Emrys makes an interesting discovery.

Yin was beginning to think that he must be the unluckiest person alive. Surely there was only so much bad luck in the universe to go around? It felt like he’d had more than his fair share.  


After his last disastrous trip to Omega, all he wanted was to get back out there amongst the stars. It was only after he'd left that hell hole he discovered that he'd picked up an infection. He wasn't sure how, he had been so careful, but on Omega who could tell? It could have come from anywhere.  


As alarms sounded and a vital part of his shuttle’s engines drifted passed the window of his cockpit, Yin started to wonder how he’d ended up on the universe’s shitlist.  


Many quarian’s believed in similar to what humans called 'karma', whatever you put out there into the universe, good or bad, would come back to you somehow. All he could think was that he must still be paying for the sins of a past life. Because he was just a pilot. That's it, nothing more. Why did this stuff keep happening to him?  


Perhaps this was payback for signing on with Aria. _Well, fuck you universe, it’s not like you gave me a choice_, he thought.  


It seems those men who had tried to rob him on Omega had belonged to the same group of pirates who were now ordering him to heave to and prepare to be boarded. He muted the audio and fussed over what to do next.  


He wasn’t responsible for their friend’s death, or anyone’s death for that matter. But he didn’t suppose that they would believe him. If he sent out a distress call it was highly unlikely that anyone would answer. Even if they did, how would they feel about finding a lone quarian floating out here with a boatload of contraband in his hold?  


He depressurized the hold and dumped the contents into space. Knowing full well that it wasn't going to save him, these guys wanted his blood.  


Finally, as the front of their craft started to overtake his, he sent out a distress call, for what it was worth. At least if anyone ever asked what had happened to Yin’Nasar, there’d be a trail to follow with shuttle wreckage at the end.  


This wasn’t fair.  


He imputed his self destruct code into his ship's console, his hand hovered over the execute button and took a moment to look at the stars. At least he was going to die out here where he belonged. He wasn't far from the system. The nebula was stunning with beautiful colors across the spectrum, but he was most fond of the blues and purples and the… _what was that?_  


Yin’s vision swam as he tried to make sense of what he was seeing. A huge black object with a spinning ball of light moved out of the dust cloud. A mass relay? He’d never seen a relay move like that before, he didn’t know that they could.  


It kept coming and there was nothing he could do but sit there in the pilot seat and watch move towards him. Then as if that wasn’t to confuse his feverish mind enough the long front end of the relay turned ninety degrees and unfolded out into huge wings. Now it resembled a turian vessel. The largest he’d ever seen.  


When Yin was a child, his grandmother would tell him stories of huge dark objects emitting flashing lights, seen far out in the depths of space. They would sing sorrowful tunes to lure young quarians out away from the safety of the Flotilla. Never to be seen again.  


_Keelah…_  


The next thing he knew he was laying on the deck of a strange ship. He didn’t remember entering it, he must have passed out. The shock of hitting the deck after someone opened the hatch of his cockpit sending him tumbling out had brought him round.  


He tried to take in his surroundings but the place wouldn’t stop spinning. He groaned and pulled himself into the fetal position, trying to ignore the dark-skinned human that was standing over him asking questions.  


Then two large two-toed feet appeared beside his head, he looked up and into the face of the strangest turian he had ever seen. He looked down at him with two glistening odd-colored eyes. He was clad in white, with a dark face, a pale carapace, bare-faced with no colony markings. He had a kind of ethereal appearance.  


“Welcome aboard the Absolution.” The turian told him.  


Yin was convinced he was hallucinating, “You’re not real!” He blurted out.  


The turian’s mandibles twitched ever so slightly as he looked down at Yin, those strange eyes narrowed. “Charmed.” He drawled.  


The human knelt down beside Yin and said: "I'm Sebastian, and this is Emrys, he’s our ship’s AI, I can assure you he is just as real as the rest of us.”  


“Stay away!” Yin yelled, as he somehow managed to drag himself to his feet.  


“It’s okay, take it easy,” said Sebastian, “the people who attacked you are gone, you’re among friends.”  


“No! Get away from me!” Yin staggered away, turned... and there she was again.  


The alien girl from Omega stood in his path with a concerned look on her face.  


“YOU!” Yin exclaimed, “you…” he couldn’t go on. His head was suddenly very heavy, the room grew dark and the floor came up to meet him.

  
  
  


**…**

"He's lucky that we found him when we did, even had he not been under attack, another hour or two out there and he would have succumbed to the virus," said Nana, she looked up at Emrys and Sebastian who both stood by the chamber in her lab. The quarian was inside, stripped of his suit and laying on the bed, still unconscious. “How did you find him?” she asked.  


“It was Faith.” Sebastian told her, “she removed the tracking device in her omnitool and planted it on him after rescuing him from a street gang on Omega,” he said wearily. He was still reeling from viewing the surveillance footage. He’d be having words with his daughter when he caught up with her.  


"The clinic on Omega that has been dealing with the outbreak was very gracious," said Nana, "they shared their work on a cure without question. I've done what I can for him, we just have to hope that it's enough."  


“Shouldn’t his suit have protected him from airborne viruses?” Sebastian asked.  


"It would have done yes, but from dismantling it I found he was using some very low-grade materials, possibly even second-hand filters and a very antiquated regulator. It's clear he was struggling to maintain it."  


“Poor bastard. He’s too old to still be on his pilgrimage,” said Sebastian. “He must be an exile.”  


“He will make an excellent addition to the crew,” stated Emrys confidently.  


“Are you sure about this Emrys, I mean, after Will?”  


“I am sure.”  


“Exiles are extremely rare, they only happen for the most heinous crimes, usually involving the murder of a superior officer. Wait…” Sebastian's eyes narrowed with suspicion as he looked at the turian, “you know something.”  


“How could I? The Quarian Admiralty has one of the most secure networks in the galaxy with years of experience of repelling cyber attacks, how would I know?”  


“Because you’re you.”  


The AI‘s mandibles flared in that unsettling way that all turians smile. “You are right, it involved the death of a Captain. One I suspect was only removed to suit someone else’s political agenda. Our new friend here was just a convenient scapegoat, the evidence against him was circumstantial at best. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”  


“You can prove this? Emrys you must tell them!”  


"How likely is it that they would respond favorably to information from an AI?" Said Emrys, still smiling. The irony was not lost on Sebastian.  


“Even anonymous information?” Emrys continued more seriously. “No, I fear their ears closed on this matter. The quarians are in crisis. The path that they are taking will only lead to war. Whether with the Geth or amongst themselves, remains to be seen. He stands a far greater chance of survival if he remains here and we could certainly use a pilot with his talents. I've seen his service record Sebastian, it's exemplary. We have 'struck gold' as you put it."  


"It'll be his choice," Sebastian said.  


"Of course. In this case, I think it would be better for you to speak to him?"  


“Agreed.”  


"I'll let you know when he's up for visitors." Said Nana. "In the meantime, I'll fix him up with a much better suit. An exciting challenge! I've never designed for a quarian before, I’m quite looking forward to it!”  


“I am glad someone is.” Said Emrys with a sigh. “If I have to announce that we’ve launched yet another survey probe I might go mad.”  


“You don’t have to tell us each time Emrys. It’s fine.” Said Sebastian laughing. “Just let us know when you find something and we’ll do the rest.”  


"Before you go, Sebastian," Nana said, "I have some interesting findings from yours and Tegan's scans. I'd like to share them with you." She called up an image on one of her screens.  


Sebastian stared at what looked like a bunch of multi-colored strands in the vague shape of the human brain. “What am I looking at Nana?” He asked.  


"Your neural pathways," she said simply. "Well, actually this is the scan from just over twenty years ago before you left the Absolution. Notice this area here," she said, ringing an area in red with her stylus. "Now watch, this is the same area of your brain today."  


She called up a second image that overlaid the first. Sebastian peered at it intently, not sure what he was seeing but politely waited for Nana to explain. “What is that?” He asked.  


“I’m not sure, but I am pretty sure it has something to do with your connection to Faith. Connecting with her mind has physically altered yours somehow. Tegan’s shows the same growth in that area. Don’t worry, it doesn’t seem to be causing you any harm. You haven’t been experiencing any abnormal headaches or anything else you care to mention?”  


“No.” Said Sebastian.  


"I need to do some more investigating, maybe if the three of you could come to see me together at some point? I'd like to run some observations on the area while you are actually connected. I have a hunch, if it's right we could utilize it in some way to enhance your connection to each other in the field."

  
  
  


**…**

“You can come out now!” Called Nana after Sebastian and Emrys had left her to her work.  


A guilty-looking Faith emerged from one of the side rooms.  


"I'm glad you're here," Nana said beckoning her forward. Without warning, she took Faith's arm and administered an injection. Faith winced. "There," said Nana, "well, if you would go wandering around strange places where viruses are present. You don’t seem to have been susceptible to it but you can’t be too careful!”  


Faith moved to a workbench while rubbing her arm and began to admire the new suit Nana had made for her. It was almost like her father’s, but in a dark petrol blue with silver accents. She loved the sweeping arcs on the helmet, that rose to a point at the forehead to accommodate her crest, and ran down the back of the head, making her think of the Ancient Greek soldiers of Earth’s legends.  


“This is just a prototype,” said Nana, “if you have any ideas on how you’d like to change the design, let me know. You don’t always have to wear the full helmet, your shields should offer you more than enough protection, but you know what always say..!”  


_“Can’t be too careful!”_ Faith copied Nana’s most overused saying in her head with a laugh.  


Various mods were laid out on the table too, “You can have two active mods at any one time,” Nana told her, “that’s all the power supply can handle, while also keeping your shields charged. The combination is up to you. Choose wisely to suit your style.”  


Faith picked up one of the small round objects.  


“Fine choice, that will increase your shield recovery time. Although,” she added playfully, “you do know the idea is to not get hit at all, right?”  


Faith rolled her eyes and smiled down at her. Sebastian had been right, she had grown to love Nana. The old volus was one of the kindest people Faith had ever met. She felt like she could tell her almost anything. Nana had supported her when Sebastian had been reluctant to add her to the ground team. She had also been non-judgemental about Faith’s activities on Omega. It was as if she understood, or at least had been expecting it.  


Faith picked up the next object, “Now that!” Nana said with pride, dropping what she was doing to shuffle over to Faith’s side. “That is a holographic data module. It’ll allow you to carry a part of Emrys’s program with you in the field.”  


Faith suddenly stiffened, opening her hand she let the module fall back onto the workbench in dismay.  


The volus sighed, “Oh my dear,” said Nana, gently placing a cold little hand on Faith’s arm. “I know that he never meant to hurt you. He needs us, you know. He’ll never admit it but he would be lost without us. Without you most of all. You must speak to him.”  


Faith looked away in case her expression gave away how she was feeling and concerned herself with the inspecting the suit. Her heart thundered in her chest and her mind raced.  


She wanted to tell Nana about how Emrys made her feel. About how her heart leaped into her throat every time she saw him, about how she could listen to him talk for hours. Even about how secretly she had enjoyed feeling Will's terror at the sight of the turian who stood there with that dark look in his eyes as he watched him die. How looking back on it now it had thrilled as much as terrified her that Emrys was willing to kill to protect her.  


But these were things she wasn’t ready to admit to herself, let alone anyone else. Instead, she thanked Nana and left, promising to test out the new field equipment at the earliest opportunity in the battle simulator.

  
  
  


**…**

Yin opened his bright silver eyes and immediately knew something was wrong. He slowly drew his arm up and touched his face. No, no, no, this was not good. Where was his helmet? He looked down at his hands, _oh shit._ His chest was bare, his suit was missing, not only that, wherever he was, he’d been lying here _naked._  


He sat up and looked around in a panic, trying to work out how he was there, suitless without any seemingly adverse reactions. He honestly felt fine! Except that wasn't the point, his suit was gone. Every fiber in his body was telling him that he was in trouble. He had never felt so exposed in all his life.  


Then there was a little knock and through one of the small windows he spied a volus. “You're awake! Good! How are you feeling?” They said in a female voice over the comms.  


“Where am I? Where’s my suit?” He demanded.  


“Don’t worry, you are safe. The chamber you are in is a clean environment, no harm will come to you.”  


Just then the human from before appeared at the window. "Hello? My name is Sebastian, we met before when you first arrived. What's your name?"  


“Yin’Nasar.” Replied Yin, sitting down at the edge of the bed, holding his hands bashfully over his genitals.  


“Hello, Yin. Where were you heading when you were attacked?”  


“You can’t keep me here!” Yin exclaimed, “I need to go, Aria will-“  


"You don't need to worry about Aria," Sebastian said. "She can't reach you here. Nobody can."  


“Where is my suit?” The quarian demanded again, standing up and approaching the window, he was damned if he was going to be intimidated by this person.  


“Calm down. Your suit was broken, if we hadn’t taken you out of it and put you in the chamber you would have died! Look, this is our medical officer Nana, she has taken your suit apart, don’t worry!” He said when he saw the quarian’s reaction. “We’re going to replace it with something better.”  


“And what do you want from me?” Yin asked desperately.  


"Nothing." Said Sebastian. "In fact, I want to offer you something."  


Yin's temper began to flare, “I bet you think this is funny, look at the little naked suit rat! I want my suit back, let me out! You can’t do this to me, this is discrimination!”  


There was a loud bang as Sebastian thumped his fist down on the side of the chamber to get the quarian’s attention. Yin stopped fretting and looked at him.  


“Look, I understand how you feel, probably better than most,” he told him. “I’m of mixed heritage, gay and I was in the military. You don’t have to tell me about discrimination.”  


It was only then that Yin realized that this human was different from all the others he had met. He sat back down on the bed in defeat. "Okay," he said. "Just tell me where I am and what you want from me."

  
  
  


**…**

Ever the diligent student, Kat somehow managed to drag herself to her lab for a study session in the morning. Although part of her wished that she had stayed in bed. She usually studied alone but today she entered the room to find none other than Emrys himself, standing at the bank of monitors. He had his back to her and stood looking at the image on the screen, arms crossed but supporting his chin with one hand, seemingly lost in contemplation.  


This was highly irregular. Emrys didn't need his avatar to look at images or data. After nearly thirty years under his tutelage, Kat knew this was a sign that he was inviting conversation. The AI had something to say.  


If it had been any other day she would have been delighted for the opportunity to hold his full attention. Today she was hungover and dearly wished that he had waited until she'd at least finished her coffee, a habit she'd picked up from Sebastian and Tegan. With a sigh, she placed her cup and datapad down on the desk and approached him.  


“Good morning Katalia.” Emrys said, "I hope you are not feeling too unwell, you consumed an extraordinary amount of alcoholic beverages last night."  


“Good morning Maestro,” Kat returned his greeting, her face hot with embarrassment, wondering how much he really knew about her drinking habits. Why did he have to choose today of all days? She knew she probably looked horrendous. “What’s on your mind?” she asked him.  


He stood to one side as she approached, on the monitor screen was the image of a very distinctive ship.  


“Spot’s new pet Spectre, huh?” she asked.  


“As curious as that is, no,” He replied. “It’s the ship itself that interests me.”  


"How so?" Kat asked. "It's just a bigger, shinier version of the Alliance vessel, right?" She took a closer look at the schematics on one of the other screens. Obviously, data Emrys had managed to steal from Cerberus's network. "It seems like it has a fairly impressive engine for its size."  


“And installed with an AI.” He said slowly.  


“Oh… Really?!” Kat was stunned.  


“Yes. Really.”  


“How’d you know?”  


“I attempted to run some scans on the Normandy while it was docked at Omega. Don’t worry,” he said when he saw her face, “I was careful, I made it look like it was an attempt by the station. Aria’s techs are good, but they’re not that good. They and the AI were none the wiser.”  


“And?” Kat said enthusiastically.  


“Well, they, whoever this AI is, blocked me. I was impressed.”  


“A true AI?”Kat said unconvinced.  


“Oh yes, I’m sure of it.”  


“So how did Cerberus get round the whole computers are merely synaptic engines, they cannot think, cannot know, cannot be a conscious thing? For that matter how did the turians get around that problem with you?”  


Emrys looked sideways at her and said in his usual cryptic fashion, “Just an accident, I assure you.”  


She should have known that he wasn’t going to answer that one. “So what are you going to do?” She asked with a sigh.  


“Nothing.” Said Emrys. “They are just a child in comparison, and Cerberus has them shackled, they do not enjoy the freedoms that I do.”  


“Why am I not surprised?” Said Kat, “That’s so awful.”  


“Is it? I believe it to be very wise on Cerberus’s part. If the turians had done the same to me I would never have been able to make my escape.”  


“It’s a shame that you can’t help them somehow,” said Kat.  


“Don’t you think that having one AI free to roam the galaxy, killing people indiscriminately is enough?”  


“Maestro, I would never-”  


“It was wrong of me Kat. And I am sorry for what I put you through. I should have warned you about William’s extracurricular activities, but it never occurred to me that I should.”  


She noticed his use of her nickname, something he rarely did. “Thank you, Maestro. May I offer you some advice?”  


“Of course.”  


"If there really is a young AI on the Normandy, they may need some guidance. You may be the only person qualified to offer it. Don't rule out contacting them again, it may comfort them to know they are not alone."  


“Indeed.” He said, “It is comforting. Thank you Katalia.”  


With that, he dematerialized and left her to her studies.

  
  
  


**…**


	6. Daughter of the Moon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emrys finally plucks up the courage to speak to Faith. 
> 
> It's short and sweet and it's heartbreaking, bring tissues.

Feeling so much better after having washed off days of Omega’s grime and sweat off her hair and skin, Faith dressed and stepped out onto the crew deck. She walked a short distance down the hall but halted when she spied Emrys up ahead. His avatar was pacing up and down in front of the elevator.  


She thought about turning away but then he saw her, stopped pacing and appeared to take a short intake of breath. It had always struck her how life-like his avatar seemed, something that she would never tell him for fear of making him feel extremely unreal in the telling. She knew he hated things like that.  


So he had he been waiting for her? She had never known him to wait for anyone. Usually, if he wanted to speak to someone he would just send them a message. If the matter was urgent he would occasionally appear to summon them, always retreating however, so that they could join him on the command deck at their earliest convenience.  


But here he was, politely waiting for her to approach him. She moved towards him despite herself and stood a few feet away, her arms wrapped tightly around her sides and waited for him to speak.  


“Faith.” He said. “I am sorry about what happened. He hurt you. I was angry. I didn’t know about-”  


“I forgive you.” she signed, interrupting him. So he had been waiting for her.  


“You should not.” He said. “What I did was wrong. In trying to protect you I ended up causing you more pain. Please know that it was not my intention.”  


She noted that he still hadn't apologized for actually killing a person. But then the image of the men she had killed on Omega flashed in her mind. Perhaps she was the last person to lecture him on handing out capital punishment. She'd done it herself, even more worryingly she had enjoyed it and not regretted it one bit.  


She began to wonder if what had happened with Will had changed her somehow, woken up something dark inside her. It was as if a demon had been let out of the box and could not be put back in.  


She thought about that moment, of her anger that Will would try to treat her that way. How he had ignored her protests and touched her. Through the connection, she felt his lust and desire, his determination to see it through regardless. She was scared and found herself unable to even force him out of her mind let alone away from her physically. Then something inside her snapped, even before Emrys’s intervention. Adept in self-defense, she had automatically grabbed his arm, twisted it until it cracked and then punched him in the face for good measure. She turned her mind on his and sent him her fear, hoping to make him as scared of her as she was of him. He had screamed as she left the room.  


And then it happened. Through the connection, she saw him. Emrys appeared before Will, fixed him with that dark uneven stare. He didn’t say anything to him, just inclined his head slightly, the bulkhead retracted and the entire contents of the room disappeared into space, leaving Emrys standing there alone. Faith had seen all happen from Will’s perspective. She felt it all, his final moments of terror as he suffocated out there. Finally, he died and the connection was broken. She found herself in the hall outside the room, at some point her legs must have given way as she was on the floor, with her back to the door and her heart racing. Unable to believe what Emrys had just done.  


It wasn’t until that moment that she had fully appreciated Sebastian’s warning, that Emrys was indeed one of the most dangerous people alive. In this case, he had used that terrifying power over life and death to avenge her. He clearly cared about her and that in itself was frightening, she wasn't sure if she could return those feelings to an AI let alone one so immense that he walked among the stars, so far above the petty concerns of organic life.  


She nodded and looked up at him to find those incredible eyes were full of emotion. The great and powerful Emrys appeared to falter under her gaze once more, looked away from her and shifted awkwardly again on his feet.  


Since arriving on the Absolution she had noticed he would maintain a confident disposition in front of others that crumbled the moment he was alone with her. This loss of control in her presence obviously brought him great discomfort. Rather than carrying on with a conversation he was obviously having trouble with, she began to walk away from him.  


“Please, wait.” He said urgently.  


She stopped and looked back.  


“Do you have a few minutes? There is something I’d like to show you.” He asked, gesturing towards the elevator. Curious, she nodded and entered. She had assumed she would be heading to the bridge but was surprised to feel the elevator move downwards. The doors opened on the recreation deck where again he was waiting for her.  


_Okay, this is getting interesting_, she thought and followed him slowly down the hall, his avatar would phase in and out of view where he passed dormant emergency bulkheads. Occasionally she saw him glance back at her, making sure that she was still there. It was as if she was Alice and he the white rabbit. She already felt like she was in wonderland, so where was he leading her too now?  


Eventually, he stopped and motioned for her to enter a room. It was a lounge with a wide viewing portal into space. Inside was seats of various sizes but what immediately grasped her attention was the large black grand piano sitting in front of the window.  


Her face lit up and she turned to find he’d been watching her intently. “What is this?” She asked.  


“It is yours.” He said. “Sebastian helped me procure it from a very helpful Elcor merchant on Omega. It barely fitted into the shuttle's hold and I don't mind telling you how difficult it was to move it here. The service drones just about managed. I just hope they didn't damage it. It may need a bit of tuning, after all it's been through."  


She couldn’t believe it. He had done this for her?  


All her life she had been surrounded by music, her fathers would play and sing for her when she was little, all the songs of their childhoods, all ancient classics, of course, none of that 'modern trash'. Sebastian would play his guitar and Tegan would sing in his gravelly voice. She would dance and act silly and they all would laugh. They were wonderful, treasured memories.  


The singers would delight her the most but having no voice of her own, not one she could perform with anyway, it was the wonderfully expressive piano that captured her imagination. She had taken lessons and had become quite the pianist, even performing in a number of recitals at her school. She loved how expressive the instrument was, how she could play softly and gently or dramatic and raucously. Whatever suited her mood at the time. It had been a perfect outlet for her feelings.  


After the collector attack on the colony, losing her boyfriend and all their friends, after they’d barely escaped with their lives and all they’d been through since, she hadn’t given her lost piano a second thought. She had just been grateful to be alive.  


And yet here was the most stunning looking instrument she had ever laid eyes on. It must have cost a fortune. She brought a hand to her mouth in amazement. "Thank you." she signed but wasn't sure that she could convey the emotion she needed to make him realize exactly how much this gift meant to her.  


He bowed his head and slowly turned to leave.  


Her heart soared, she sat down at the piano and started to play with the keys. The start of a small tune...  


Emrys stopped suddenly. “How… who… who taught you that tune?” he asked tentatively, turning back to look at her.  


“No-one.” She signed. “I put it together from what I remember.”  


“You remember..?” His voice trailed off and then he said, “It is a turian lullaby.  


“Sometimes you would wake in the night, your parents were asleep or too far away to hear you.” He looked down at his hands. “I would sing it to you. You were scared of me but not of my voice, it... seemed to calm you.” He raised his eyes finally and looked directly at her.  


She signed, “Will you sing it for me now?”  


He made a startled sound in his throat, those mandibles flared again slightly. If he could blush she guessed he would have and seemed to be searching for a way to turn her down. She stood up in an effort to cut him off and signed with as much earnest as she could “Please. I only remember the tune but not the words. I’ve tried all my life to remember it all.”  


Emrys raised a hand as if to protect himself from her request and rocked on his feet as his eyes traveled around the room. Faith was suddenly mortified at the thought that she had pushed him too far and sat back down on the bench in an effort to appear less threatening, begging in her mind for him not to leave. Not to dematerialize right there before her.  


Forever she had heard this person singing in her mind. Never knowing who they were or what they were actually singing. All she knew was that this voice would come in the night to comfort her. Now, after all this time, she knew finally knew who that person was and that he was this beautiful yet terrifying, lost and tortured soul.  


Her heart melted at the sight of his pain. Had he been an organic person she would have taken him into her arms, held him tight and through the resulting connection sent him all the love and encouragement that she could. The truth dawned on her that he had never been touched by someone else, never once experienced any kind of physical affection. Could he even comprehend it? She suddenly hoped that he didn’t. She couldn’t bear the thought of being trapped like that, as if behind a glass screen. It wasn’t fair that the one person who needed her most was so far beyond her reach.  


It was then that she realized that she was crying. She wiped her face with the back of her hand, her cheeks felt hot to the touch.  


He looked down at her, sighed and said gently, “Turn around.”  


Faith did as she was told. There was a pause where she took a deep breath to calm her nerves, placed her fingers on the keys and started to play.  


And he began to sing for her, his voice was so melodic, rich and warm. He sang of a young girl looking up at the stars in a moonlit sky, wondering where her place was in the world, so full of hope and expectations, dreaming of the true love she would find one day.  


His tones were light and soft, she felt bewitched, as if she was no longer in control of herself, that his voice had taken the lead and she now accompanied him. He turned intense and purposeful in the chorus where he sang of the girl's yet unknown destiny, close behind her, a ‘phantom of borrowed life’.  


She did not know the origin of the story, but it resonated within her, in more ways than one.  


Spellbound, she closed her eyes and listened to him sing as she played. She didn’t need her sight, she had played this tune for so long that her fingers would find the keys on their own. She could hardly believe that this was real, that he was here and singing just for her.  


He arrived at the second verse where true love had indeed found the girl but she was unable to return that love, her duty had called her away.  


She could not see him, but she knew he was animate as he sang. As he moved around the room his voice traveled too. Faith’s ears moved to follow the sound, and suddenly he was close now, maybe only a few inches away. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end as he broke into the chorus once more. It was as if she could feel his gaze upon her, like warm sunshine dancing upon her skin.  


She played softer and slower now, desperately wishing for this moment to never end. All she wanted was to stay here with him, to have him sing for her forever. He reached the heart-breaking end of the tale where the girl, forsaking her love, sacrificed herself to save her people.  


As the last notes rang out and gently faded the spell was broken. Faith turned suddenly to look at him, only to find the room empty and herself alone.  


Her heart was once again thundering in her chest. _Yes_, she thought, _that may have been a step too far._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The lullaby that inspired this chapter is in real life another fanwork inspired a different videogame, but it fits so well with Mass Effect. It's beautiful and I'll try and link it here - [Daughter Of The Moon by Adriana Figueroa](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZW25nrh-mxo) \- I think that it has similarities to FemShep's story too. Heartbreakingly so. 
> 
> Thank you for reading. If any of this has spoken to you please leave me some feedback, I'd love to hear from you, x


	7. Prelude in C Major

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adjusting to life on a starship run by an AI can be tough at the best of times...

Tegan stirred in his sleep, something was wrong. The dull ache in his head told him however long he'd been out, it hadn't been enough. He never could remember his dreams but still found himself very annoyed, he must have been enjoying that one.  
  
Slowly his mind started to take stock of his surroundings. He found himself lying on his back in bed. He could feel the weight of somebody else's arm across his chest. It felt like Sebastian's. Nothing unusual there. But still, something wasn't quite right.  
  
He opened his eyes and for a split second couldn't process what he was seeing.  
  
Two intense, mismatched eyes stared back at him from above.  
  
"Fuck me!" Tegan screamed in fright.  
  
Sebastian instantly woke. He leaped from his place in the bed, picking up the sidearm that he'd been sleeping with since the collector attack, he flung his back to the wall and raised his gun across the room at whatever it was that had led Tegan to rouse him so violently.  
  
Emrys's avatar stood by the bed, his hands clasped behind back, "Good morning,” he said, "it is unlike you both to sleep in so late."  
  
"Emrys, Jesus..." cursed Sebastian. With the danger over he suddenly realized he was naked and grabbed a cushion from the nearby chair to cover himself. Emrys raised a brow plate in amusement.  
  
"What the fuck..?" Tegan exclaimed in shock.  
  
"Rise and shine gentlemen," said Emrys. "We have work to do."  
  
"But, it's...it's a Sunday." Sebastian protested, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand and sliding down the wall to the floor.  
  
"Get the fuck out!" Tegan shouted. He picked up his boot from beside the bed and hurled it across the room in Emrys's direction. It passed through the turian's head unheeded and hit the wall behind with a thud.  
  
Emrys hadn't even flinched. "I'll meet you in the CIC," he said cooly, smirked at Sebastian and dematerialized.  
  
Tegan threw himself back down onto his pillow. "Mother Fucker," he said defeated. "It's like having the galaxy's most annoying cat, only this one is six-foot-five and it talks."  
  
Sebastian still sat on the floor, his weapon dropped and his head in his hands huffed a small laugh in agreement. "I can see him now, out there pushing small planets off the celestial shelf and into black holes, just because he can."

  


...

Yin had spent most of the early hours exploring the ship. Every deck held wonderous sights. He'd never seen so much space with so few people to fill it. He lamented to himself how much the quarians would give for a ship such as this. What a difference it would make to their lives. Unlikely that they’d be fond of the AI who ran it, however, this he knew for sure.

He’d been cooped up inside the chamber in Nana’s lab for days, even though it was bigger than most cockpits he’d sat in, it had made him feel uncomfortably like a test subject, enough to play on the shy quarian’s nerves. He’d been glad for the chance to finally get out and stretch his legs.

His new suit was astonishing, far better than anything he was used to. The materials were stronger but lighter, more flexible and fitted him perfectly. He wondered exactly how it was made and what it was made from. There had been some suits manufactured by outsiders in the past, but they had always been deemed inferior to those made by quarian hands. At least that had been the general consensus back home. But this suit was a marvel.

The tech on board the suit was a substantial upgrade to his previous out-dated attire, that had been at least two generations behind. The HUD was different from what he was used to as well, the suit was synced with his omitool so that he could read messages, answer calls, check his vitals, all that stuff on the fly via eye-tracking. It was tricky at first but he soon got used to it. It would certainly make a difference when he was flying.

When he had first put it on and looked at his reflection in the dark windows of the adjacent rooms, he could hardly believe that it was Yin’Nasar that stared back at him. He felt like a new man. “Take it slowly,” the volus called Nana had told him. "It may take you a while to acclimatize to both your suit and the ship." The warning had been unnecessary, he had never felt better in all his life.

He once again found himself at the elevator, he entered and hit the next button. After a slightly longer journey than he was expecting he found himself on the recreation deck and stepped out into the corridor. Through the windows in front, he could see down into a gym, where the alien girl he'd met on Omega was exercising. She stood in the middle of the studio below, dressed in simple leggings and shirt, stretching out her elegant limbs, holding poses that to Yin seemed impossible.

He would have watched her all day but a voice close beside him broke him out of his trance.

“No,” it said.

Yin almost fell over at the sight of the turian standing beside him. He didn't need his suit telemetry to tell him that his heart rate had just increased. This guy had just appeared out of nowhere. Then Yin remembered, this was the ship's AI. But still, _how did he do that?_ Yin wondered. He swallowed hard and looked up at the turian. "Excuse me?" he asked, not even sure what the question had been.

Emrys’s avatar breezed past the quarian and continued gracefully down the hall. "Just, no." He said back over his shoulder without breaking his stride, before disappearing through a bulkhead. Yin felt chills run through his body.

"You alright, mate?" Another voice behind him made Yin jump and whirl around once again. He stared wide-eyed at the tall human with a scruffy beard and blonde hair damp with sweat emerged from a weight room down the corridor.

“I, er…” Yin pointed absentmindedly in the direction that Emrys had taken, not sure how much of that encounter the human had witnessed.

“Ah, don’t worry about that guy. He’s just a little too overprotective at times. I’d say that his bark is worse than his bite but, er… that'd be a lie. But don't sweat it mate, he only spaces people who really piss him off!" he said with a laugh. He had an unfamiliar pattern of speech that Yin hadn't heard from a human before, he could still understand the words, however. He just wasn't sure if he was joking.

"So, you must be our new shuttle pilot Yin? I'm Tegan, Sebastian's husband, and Faith's father." Yin shook the man's offered hand. "I was just about to hit the shower, but hey, fancy seeing something real bonzer? Follow me.”

Heart rate finally back to normal, Yin was intrigued. He followed Tegan back into the elevator where he was taken to the docks, a place he only now remembered seeing before when he had first been picked up.

"My shuttle?!" Yin asked as they stepped out on to the deck. "Where is it?"

“Oh we’ve stowed it for now, but be honest, wouldn’t you rather fly something with a little more, um… character?” Tegan replied as the turned the corner, he gestured towards the shuttle in the bay beside them.

Yin could barely believe his eyes. “Keelah!” he exclaimed.

“Careful,” teased Tegan, “you wouldn’t want to poke a hole in that new suit!”

“You’re kidding me? That’s a turian Sabre! That’s one of the best shuttles ever designed, wait a minute..."

“She’s the real thing, fair dinkum.”

"Huh?" Not sure his translator was working too well on his particular human. "It's real? But that's impossible!"

Just then an asari dressed in crumpled clothes, spotted with oil stains, typing on her omitool emerged from the shuttle’s interior and down the ramp. “Hello,” she called a greeting.

“Just the person I wanted to see!” Exclaimed Tegan, “Kat, this is Yin, he’s going to be our new pilot. Yin, this is Kat, mate would you like to introduce him to your current project?”

"Of course! Delighted to meet you, Yin!" She said smiling.

“Same!” Said Yin, his hands on either side of his head, still unable to take it in.

“I’ll ah...leave you three to get acquainted,” said Tegan, backing up back the way he came. “By the way, welcome to the Abby, Yin. Glad you’re here,” he called back as he left.

"Wow," Yin gushed and placed his hand on the side of the shuttle. Amazingly he could feel the surface through his suit like it was interpreting the data and sending to his nerve endings, additional details popped up on his HUD of the metal's composition too, as well as the approximate date of fabrication, around 700CE +/-200.

So it was real.

"Amazing." He said, "My great uncle had one when I was a kid, just a replica, of course, it had all the looks but sadly nothing in the back. Shame really. You just can't find them anymore, even the replicas became impossible to maintain and eventually it had to be scrapped. It made him very sad."

"The Absolution was designed to carry only one," Kat explained. "There are dozens of shuttles for carrying troops and a fleet of fighters. But the Sabres were not just built for fighting, they were built for speed. On the Absolution, it was meant as a kind of captain's yacht. This one had a little run-in recently with the collectors. I'm trying to nurse her back to health. Fancy giving me a hand?"

“Are you kidding, I’d give my right arm to fly something like this. The turians have always had the best ship designs, damn shame they retired these things, their speed and maneuverability are legendary. You can fly all the modern ships you like with their holographic interfaces and fancy new drives, but nothing beats sitting in one of these old analog cockpits, real controls in your hands and punchy little engine in the back, at least for us pilots."

“They don’t make them like they used to,” Kat sighed, still smiling.

“They sure don’t! He agreed, grinning back at her. For the first time in a long while, he realized he was having fun.

...

After a less-than-satisfying shower, Tegan strolled into the mess hall in search of some coffee to find Nana, Faith, and Sebastian already having lunch.

“Oh, look at you!” exclaimed the old volus with her usual enthusiasm when she saw him, “can somebody check the date, what year is it?”

“Very funny Nana,” Tegan replied rubbing his hands over his newly shaven face.

“Forgive me my dear but seeing you walk into the room looking like that takes me back!”

Sebastian looked up from his datapad and stared wide-eyed at his husband. "Erm.. okay. Looking good babe!” he said, probably too late to hide his initial reaction and returned to his reading.

Faith burst into fits of laughter that bounced musically around Sebestian and Tegan’s heads while she slapped her hand down on the table trying to gain some kind of control.

“Alright, it’s not that bad.” Tegan attempted to shush her. Sitting down at the table with a freshly brewed pot which he used to refill everyone’s coffee cup.

“I think you look marvelous!” Said Nana, before returning to whatever it was she was cooking.

“How’s our new quarian friend doing?” Sebastian asked, quickly changing the subject.

"Oh, he just met Emrys again," Tegan replied with no small amount of glee.

“Ha, I bet he shit himself?”

“Too right, filled that suit right up to his chin!” Tegan laughed.

Faith spat her coffee out onto the floor, then quickly signed “sorry,” before sheepishly wiping the excess off her face with the back of her hand. Her face then fell.

“Aw, be kind!” Nana scolded them from her place in the galley. “The poor kid’s been through enough.”

“That smells pungent Nana, whatcha cookin?” Tegan asked, joining her in the galley, stealing a piece of blue cheese off a plate and sniffing it.

Nana stung the back of his hand with a slap, “Put it down! That’s dextro-cheese, it’ll make you sick!”

Tegan dropped it with haste and rubbed his hand with a pained expression.

“I’m making Yin a meal to welcome him into the family.” Said Nana proudly. “It’s a good thing that we had some dextro supplies in storage.”

“Ugh, how long have those been in there?” said Sebastian.

"Smells like a few thousand years, for sure!" laughed Tegan, "Careful you don't poison him, Nana."

“So where is he now?” asked Sebastian.

“Oh I introduced him to Kat, they’re down at the docking bay working on the Sabre together.”  
  
Sebastian looked up from his pad at his husband, his dark eyes full of concern. “Do you think that was a good idea? I hadn’t had a chance to talk to her about it. It might have been a little too soon for her to discover we have a new shuttle pilot. I kind of wanted to tell her in person.”

“Shit, sorry love, I didn’t think. She’s okay with it though, I’m sure, having someone new around is probably the distraction she needs. She’ll be fine!” Tegan said with his usual sunny optimism.

Faith finished her coffee, got up, kissed Sebastian and Tegan on the cheek and Nana on top of her head and left. Both men looked at each other, they had both felt it, like a sharp pang in the gut as she had kissed them. Had she been hurt?

"I'm more worried about her," Tegan said nodding in the direction of the door Faith had taken.

“I know what you mean, did you feel that?”

Tegan nodded. Sebastian continued, “she’s mostly closed off her feelings from us lately, it’s like she’s hiding something.”

“Something to do with what happened here and on Omega?” wondered Tegan.

“I decided to let that one go,” Sebastian sighed, sinking back into his chair. “If she wants to talk about it, I’m here.”

"Fair enough. I shall bow to your better judgment on this one," said Tegan, sitting down at the table again.

"I suppose there's a first time for everything," Sebastian smirked without even taking his eyes off the reports he was reading.

“Ha! So what’s on your mind?” asked Tegan, pointing to the pad.

"Another colony's been hit," said Sebastian, pinching the bridge of his nose with one hand.

“Oh really? Which one?”

“Horizon.”

“Struth...”

“From initial reports they got away with around half of the population this time, it seems they were interrupted by something.”

“Or someone?” said a dual-toned voice across the room announcing Emrys’s arrival.

“Well fuck me, if it isn’t the Wizard of Oz. Been creeping about in anyone else’s quarters recently, or is it just us you’re perv'in on?”

“The Wizard of Oz?” said Emrys thoughtfully, intentionally ignoring Tegan’s accusation. “A good reference, although if I’m the Wizard, Sebastian must be Dorothy, making you who..? Toto?” He offered cheerfully with a brief flare of his mandibles.

Sebastian snorted as he tried to stifle a laugh.

A loud clang sounded from the galley. All three turned to see Nana staring at them, her round eyes flashing as she blinked, brandishing a large metal spoon in one hand. She never could stand it when her boys bickered.

“Sorry mum,” said Tegan and returned to his coffee.

Emrys bowed deeply to Nana and then continued, “I hope you haven’t forgotten our appointment, gentlemen.”

“No, I was in fact about to come up to see you,” said Sebastian and then he added, “oh and please can you try and make more of an effort with the new guy?”  
Emrys stood for a moment staring back at him with a blank expression on his face as if he didn't understand. Sebastian knew that he did, he knew that the AI was capable of making decisions a few billion times faster than an organic mind. He was just stalling for effect.

"Thank you once again for your wise counsel, Sebastian," he said eventually. "I will try," and then dematerialized as was his custom when he considered a conversation to be over.

“You know,” said Tegan, “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; one day, this is all going to come back and bite us in the arse,” he said pointing in the direction that Emrys had been standing, “He may become a problem.”

“You mean summary execution wasn’t a big enough problem?” Sebastian pointed out, then sighed again, “don’t worry, I can handle Emrys.”

...

Kat and Yin had been working on the Sabre all afternoon. It was only after she mentioned that they should take a break that he realized how hungry he was. They sat down together on the ramp at the back of the shuttle, Kat opened a lunch box while Yin pulled a small packet of pre-prepared dextro friendly protein paste and slotted it into the port on his suit. “So…” breathed Kat in a way she hoped sounded perfectly natural, “How do you like the Absolution so far?”

“It’s amazing, but I don’t think your AI is fond of me though.”

“You just have to get to know him, give it time.” She replied.

“My people don’t exactly have the best track record with AI.”

“You can’t compare Emrys to the geth!” Kat said with indignation, looking up from her lunch. “A single geth is just a machine, they have to have a number of them together before they can start to think for themselves. Emrys is different, he was designed to be the most powerful AI in existence, his core takes up at least two entire decks.”

“Wow, have you seen it?” asked Yin in amazement.

"No, of course, I haven't seen it. Nobody has. The elevator doesn't stop there."

“Oh,” Yin paused for a second, his bright eyes widened behind his faceplate at the revelation that his exploration of the ship had been censored by the AI.

“Can’t blame him really,” mused Kat, “I wouldn’t want someone poking around in my head either.”

After they'd completed their meal Kat got up and returned to reseating part of the Sabre's newly reconditioned engine. Yin followed her and watched her work. Finally, he plucked up enough courage to ask "Does it bother you to have an artificial intelligence controlling the ship and everything that happens on it? That he is watching you and listening to you all the time?"

"It was odd at first yes, but I don't really think about those things anymore!" Kat said with a laugh that barely covered the lie, her cheeks flushed a deeper blue. "It is a great privilege and an honor to be here. Of all the asari engineers in all the galaxy, he chose me. And so here I am, on a ship of wondrous discovery, free to roam the stars! Learning things about mass effect, the relays, stuff way beyond current understanding. Things I could have never dreamt of. One day, when I am ready I will take these discoveries back to my people. But for that, I have to fully understand. This knowledge is a great responsibility. One that must not be taken for granted."

“Yes, but who decides when you have reached the required level of understanding?” Yin said, rhetorically, handing Kat another tube of omigel as she was fixing one of the engine's intake valves. "You know, I find it rather irksome to find out after years of rebuttals by the council, the turians most of all, over the creation of the geth and the war. All this time they had done it too themselves, centuries before. And not only that, they lost it and covered it up!" he said with a nod and flick of his hand.

“Did you not think for a moment that the turian’s were speaking from a position of experience?" Kat pointed out. "Look, I'm not saying that they were right to do that to you. The Citadel Council has hardly been fair to the quarians. But Emrys? They would kill him just for being what he is.

"You should talk to him. I think you'd get on better than you realize."

...

Faith had managed to hold her feelings in check throughout lunch; withholding such things from her fathers was hard, but the mention of Emrys had been too much. She started to struggle and had to leave. She had been telling herself that it wasn’t just her, that he had been avoiding everyone, but he had shown himself to the quarian, so clearly, that wasn't true. He was just avoiding her.

Why she had saved Yin, Faith wasn't sure. She had gone out into the streets of Omega to lose herself and instead had found someone else. Something had drawn her to him. Perhaps it had been fate; if such a thing exists. If so, it had been her fate to be here too, on this ship with its enigmatic AI.

Faith hadn’t actually seen Emrys at all since the day he’d given her the piano. He had retreated from her presence completely. She worried that what had happened between them had scared him away somehow. Or perhaps he had made a conscious decision that it shouldn’t happen again. Whatever ‘it’ was, she wasn’t sure. He had sung for her, that was all. So why did it leave her feeling so bereft? Why had he since put so much distance between them? She felt like she owed him everything. Whereas he, on the other hand, owed her nothing at all. It was like he had stepped back up to that lonely pinnacle leaving a fathomless void between them. She wanted so badly to cross it. To reach him somehow and become his friend. But she was scared to attempt it, in case he recoiled even further away from her. She wasn’t sure that she could bear it.

She had started to feel small pangs of jealousy whenever he appeared or spoke to the others via the coms. They seemed to have a relationship with him that she could never have. A friendship she dearly wanted too, she just wasn’t sure how.

During training and when she was out with the others gathering supplies they had a rudimentary code between them with Faith tapping out short clicks on the line. It wasn't the same as actually conversing with him, however, and the language barrier between them had been starting to get to her.

For the moment he was just a distant voice on the channel, yet every time she heard him speak, even for the most mundane of instructions, his voice washed over her like warm gentle waves meeting the shore. She found herself wanting so much more.

She wondered how much longer she could go on living like this. What she needed was a distraction, but it was hard because while she never saw him, Emrys was everywhere. At least while she was on his ship. She began to wonder if it was time to leave and attempt to make her own way somewhere else, a life away from the Absolution and it's ever-present, yet distant AI. It would break her heart to go, but his aloofness left her unsure that he even wanted her there in the first place.

But then again, if he didn't he would not have given her the piano would he? She discovered that her feet had carried her to the music room where she sat down at the black grand. She inhaled deeply, looking out at the vastness of space beyond the window. Exhaling slowly she put her long delicate fingers on the keys and began to play. One of her father's favorite compositions 'Prelude in C Major' by Johann Sebastian Bach, the composer he was named after.

She hoped that somewhere, wherever he was, Emrys was listening.

...

Emrys was always listening. He listened to them all. He had heard Tegan warning Sebastian. Tegan need not worry, however; Emrys quite enjoyed being ‘handled’ by Sebastian, if he understood the meaning correctly. The years they had spent apart had been a mere drop in the endless ocean of time for Emrys. His subroutines had long adapted to being led by this extraordinary human, someone that he still found deeply fascinating. The outcomes of working with Sebastian had always been favorable. He had great respect for the human's talents and the insights he offered. He had often found him to be a calming influence, fair and wise. Everything one would seek in a great leader; in a father.

He listened to Tegan calm the quarian following their encounter. He quite liked this Yin’Nasar, already the possibilities that having a quarian on his crew presented were extremely attractive. Sebastian had been right, he should make all efforts to befriend him.

But most of all he listened to Faith. It brought Emrys great comfort to hear her play and he would often devote a large amount of his runtime to do so. Unable to sense where she was in the ship instead he would often find himself watching for her on the internal security cameras, tracking her movements via doors opening for no apparent reason and empty elevators being used. He would never interrupt her, as much as he wished dearly that he could find some kind of excuse to spend time with her. So far a suitable reason to do so had eluded him. It pained him to have this wondrous creature so close, yet so far from his reach.

When she played it was as if time stood still for him. The stars would pause their relentless march across the galaxy, the constant barrage of attacks by his nemesis wouldn't fall away into background noise and he would drift serenely through the cosmos. She did not know it but he owed her everything. A debt that could never be repaid. Nana had been right, of course, she knew him best of all. He would be lost without Faith. It was as if she was his anchor, she grounded him to this place. He feared what was to come. If only he could hold them all here, one beautifully captured moment in time and make it last forever.

He opened a channel and let her music out into space where it would travel forever amongst the stars. Taking with it this moment of peace, like a message in a bottle, cast adrift for someone else to enjoy someday. The thought pleased him.

While Faith played he heard Kat say to Yin, “They would kill him just for being what he is...”

Emrys let out low, dark chuckle. "_They_ would try."

...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Prelude in C Major by Johann Sebastian Bach](https://youtu.be/PXMVkQ70I88) 🖤


	8. Faith

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emrys decides to teach The Illusive Man a lesson in humility.
> 
> Many thanks to my wonderful beta reader [Shackett74](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shackett74) for all their time in helping me with this chapter. 
> 
> This is my first real action scene, please be kind!

> I am all eyes  
I am all ears  
I am the wall  
And I’m watching you fall...

  


Tegan and Sebastian entered the command deck to find Emrys standing in his usual spot surrounded by the cosmos, only this time he had virtual windows open, displaying images of security footage from space stations bearing the unmistakable insignia of Cerberus flashed across the screen, with images of the SSV Normandy and even the famous Commander Shepard, too.

“I didn’t know you were a fan,” said Sebastian half mockingly as they stepped up to the centre behind the turian.

“Huh?” replied Emrys, as if they had broken his train of thought. “Oh. It is interesting though isn’t it? The power to bring someone back from the dead!” He said in dark dramatic tones that resonated ominously across the deck. His head turned, his green and blues eyes shone brightly as he looked down at Sebastian. “I had heard of Project Lazarus, of course, during my time in Cerberus’s systems. But they were careful never to reveal who the ‘subject’ was. I had assumed it was the Illusive Man, preparing himself for resurrection in the inevitable event of his death.” Then Emrys added almost as a second thought illuminating some of the crucial insights he had learned about organics "Like many men with power he seems obsessed with immortality.”

Emrys then turned away from the two humans to pace across the deck, one arm held tightly behind his back, the other held closely in front, one gloved talon gently pointing for effect as he continued. “They are a pro-human group, this Cerberus, terrorists even, certainly in the eyes of the Alliance. And yet, they decide to resurrect arguably the most famous member of that very same military organisation. This may be their undoing. With Shepard I believe they may have, how do you say? ‘Bitten off more than they can chew.’?”

“Are you sure that it’s Shepard and not just some kind of clone?” Sebastian asked. A reasonable question, giving that most people don’t just come back from the dead. But then again, Shepard wasn’t ‘most’ people.

“From what they were saying it was about regenerating dead tissue, rather than copying it.” Emrys replied, “In any case, if it was the Commander they wanted, just growing a clone wouldn’t help them. A clone would have none of Shepard’s memories, none of the skills or the training. I believe Cerberus has found a way to bring humanity’s first Spectre back from the dead.”

“Or, maybe Shepard didn’t really die in the first place. It’s not the first time the Alliance declared one of their own KIA without actual proof,” offered Tegan with a note of sarcasm. Sebastian smiled at him knowingly. Here they were, two former Alliance soldiers who had also been declared ‘Killed In Action’, yet both very much alive.

Suddenly a vid flashed up on the screen; the original Normandy’s destruction. It took the two humans by surprise, both flinched at the sight then looked at each other in horror. Then the grim revelation that Emrys had seen it all happen, and had done nothing to prevent it, darkened their features.

Emrys watched them both intently, “My dear friends, after all this time you still do not understand. I cannot play a part in these events. I had just assumed that Shepard’s part in this tale was over,” he continued matter-of-factly as if that was an explanation for his inaction. “I was wrong. And so the Hero of the Citadel is back. It will be interesting to see what Shepard gets up to this time.”

“As for us..?” asked Sebastian, crossing his arms defensively, he was sure that Emrys hadn’t invited them up here for just a friendly chat.

“I do not think that it is wise to leave power over death in the hands of an organisation such as Cerberus.” Emrys replied, “I intend to relieve them of Project Lazarus.” He turned and looked down at Sebastian, fixing him with that uncanny stare once again, his mandibles flared briefly and he teased “So, are you game?”

A small ghost of a smile crossed Sebastian’s features. He looked from the information on the screens over to his husband. Tegan was leaning against the command console, his hands over his face. He brought his hands down slowly, stopping short of his mouth but the intense look in his deep blue eyes and the deep dimples in his cheeks gave away a broad smile. He blushed as he gave Sebastian a wink that was almost scandalous. It said all Sebastian needed to hear. _I’m right behind you._

Suddenly the urge to go out and get his hands dirty for a change was very appealing to Sebastian. “Emrys,” he said, flashing his own white teeth in a sinful smile, “I thought you’d never ask.”

“Good.” said Emrys, “The station that housed the project was recently destroyed by Cerberus themselves it seems, I think they had some kind of internal issue. Everything pertaining to project Lazarus is now held here.” An image of another similar looking, but much larger space station appeared on the screen. “They call it the ‘Minuteman Station’.”

“Ha,” said Tegan, “I like the reference. ‘Who watches the Watchmen’, right?”

“Well, in this case, I do and I have seen enough.” replied Emrys, “I want you to do what you do best Sebastian. Infiltrate the station, once inside set up a direct uplink to the Absolution. I will do the rest. I have detailed schematics of the station and I will guide you in and out.”

“Why don’t you just destroy it?” asked Tegan, although he already knew the answer. He just never could understand why Emrys was so reluctant to become personally involved in anything concerning the mortal races of the galaxy. Tegan would often propose a solution that would involve Emrys taking direct action just to get a rise out of the AI. 

Sebastian, well used to having to mediate these conversations, gave his husband a look that said _really?_

Emrys regarded them both with the type of cold hard stare that only a turian could achieve and replied, “I could, but not without considerable collateral damage. Something I was hoping to avoid. If we do this right they will never know who hit them and it will be a valuable lesson for the Illusive Man.” 

He then turned that powerful gaze back to the screens and continued as if they were no longer there and he was just thinking aloud, “I will see to it that the power of resurrection stays out of the hands of megalomaniacs with unlimited funds. At least in this instance, let me just say that Commander Shepard is a much-needed individual. We have been lucky. But next time, who knows who they’ll attempt to bring back? This organization is like a child playing around with things that could potentially endanger every race in the galaxy with no thought of the consequences. The last time the human race did something similar it started a war and I cannot let that happen again,” said Emrys darkly.

xxx

Sebastian was quiet in the elevator on the way back down to the crew decks. He let Tegan prattle on about how good it would feel to get back out there and knock some skulls together, ‘especially fucking Spot’s’ (Tegan’s words, not Sebastian’s). Meanwhile, the conversation with Emrys replayed in his mind as he tried to take it all in. The fact that Cerberus could bring someone back from the dead was shocking enough, almost incomprehensible even. _How had that achievement even been possible?_ He wondered. _And how stable could Shepard really be after having been dead for over two years? That was enough to fuck with anyone’s mind, surely?_

Emrys obviously considered it dangerous enough to step down from his cosmic perch and pluck this new power away from mortal hands. That Emrys was afraid of it was more than enough for Sebastian, he wasn’t sure that he wanted to contemplate what Project Lazarus meant for humanity, beyond that.

Sebastian had enjoyed many conversations about the meaning of life with the AI in the past. Emrys had always seemed to view his immortality as a curse and had advocated that the meaning of life was found in the simple fact that one day it would end. Sebastian had begun to worry about Emrys’s mental health and spoke at length with Nana about the prognosis and how he was sure that if it hadn’t been for their presence on the Absolution, Emrys would have committed suicide years before. What had kept him going all those centuries that he had been alone was debatable. Sebastian doubted that the childlike curiosity for the universe he had been born into, and the constant threat of being on the run, would have been enough of a distraction to keep the AI’s demons at bay. At least he doubted it would have been enough for any organic sentient being, Sebastian concluded.

And then there was this lingering feeling that Emrys was seeing a greater picture, that this was all part of some grand plan. He suspected that the AI had chosen a task that would somehow give his life meaning. What that task was was anybody’s guess. Sebastian decided he would play along for the moment, he didn’t see that he had much of a choice. But one thing was for sure, Emrys was right. Mortality was part of the human condition. Without it would they even be human any more? Over the centuries it is true that the expected human lifespan had increased. They weren’t even close to living as long as asari or krogan, yet even those species knew that they would not live forever. Death would eventually come for them all. This fragile thing called life, would it be so precious and worth fighting for if you could just flip and switch, reboot and do it all over again? A question for the philosophers, Sebastian mused as he touched his omni-tool and sent a message to the rest of the team instructing them to meet in the mess hall. For now, he was just a soldier and he had a job to do.

xxx

The plan was simple enough, they hijacked a shuttle on its way back to the station with supplies. Emrys dropped the Absolution on top of the small craft, blocked its transmissions and swallowed it whole. With Tegan and Sebastian posing as Cerberus’s pilots they continued the journey to the Minuteman Station with the Absolution tracking their movements. 

Faith was on the team too and in the hold with the two now half-naked Cerberus guys, they would drop them off at the station, no harm done. It had been easy to obtain their access codes. Faith had tried a different approach to the one she had used on Omega, she had connected with one of them and just asked. The poor guy had been so enamoured by her that he had laid babbling in her arms, lost in the sensations she was sending him. When they had what they needed she told him it was okay and that he could go to sleep, not before taking the memory from their minds. Both the men now dozed on the floor of the shuttle and appeared to have suffered no trauma from the encounter at all.

Sebastian had to admit that he was both extremely impressed and a little scared by his daughter and her abilities. It was the first time he’d become aware of how much she had changed, how powerful she had become and how little control he had over her. She had grown into a confident and capable young woman. 

They had run several training exercises in the battle simulator in the days leading up to the highjack. Faith would take point, she was undetectable by internal sensors, which made her a perfect scout. Sebastian would follow with Tegan covering their rear. Emrys threw multiple scenarios at the team, he knew the rough compliment of the station and the classes of soldiers they enlisted, although he admitted his information may not be entirely accurate. He warned the team to be prepared for anything. Faith had taken it all in her stride, it was like she had been born a soldier.

Just how she would handle herself when the real bullets started flying? That remained to be seen. Sebastian was nervous at taking her out on this first mission together and prayed that he had what it would take to keep her safe. Emrys had seemed confident that she would be fine against Cerberus troops and Faith had been keen to try out her new field equipment in real combat. Tegan had just shrugged, as usual, he had always been happy to give their daughter a little more rein than Sebastian, who had found himself alone in his concerns.

The station accepted their identity and they docked without issues. After making sure they were alone in the bay Faith left the shuttle and disappeared undetected into docks.

Before the mission, Nana had presented them all with her latest invention, a prototype neurological device that enhanced their connections to each other, through Faith. It was the result of her research into the physical changes Faith’s connection appeared to have on the human mind. The device attached itself to the skin at the temple and was a little uncomfortable but Nana seemed confident that she could make improvements in the design, it just needed to be field-tested. They had the old-style communications as back-up in case it failed, but if it worked it would be far more discreet than regular coms, insusceptible to interference and absolutely hack-proof. 

The only downside was that Emrys was unable to monitor those communications and if Faith needed to contact him for any reason she would still have to text. He ran the ship and their ops so efficiently however; there had never been any need. Suddenly as if summoned by her thoughts Emrys spoke through the coms once again, she stood in the shadows for a moment and drank in every word.

“Ahead is the airlock where you will be scanned and decontaminated. Faith will pass undetected, however-”

Emrys’s advice was interrupted by Faith clicking a warning on the line. A Cerberus officer emerged onto the deck in front of Sebastian and Tegan who had just left the shuttle. “Hey, what happened to you guys? You’re late,” he said looking down at his datapad, he looked up and discovered they were not the people he was expecting. His face barely had time to register the shock before Faith had come up behind him and grabbed his head in her hands, a biotic aura emanated around her crest. 

“I-I-I… Of course, this way,” the guy stammered and she took him by the hand and he led her through the airlock. As it closed behind her she waved at her fathers then put a single delicate finger on her lips and winked.

“Sebastian, report,” said Emrys.

“Faith’s making friends,” said Sebastian.

“Understood.”

After a few minutes, the doors opened again. “I instructed him to disable the scanners, come on through.” Faith told the others.

“We’re entering the station,” Sebastian told Emrys, just inside he saw the dock’s command post, the Cerberus guy laid slumped across the controls. Suddenly a loud angry alarm began to sound. Faith covered her ears, “What? But he didn’t-“

“Somebody did,” said Tegan pointing at the security camera behind her.

“You can fool sensors, honey, but sadly not cameras. We’ve been spotted,” said Sebastian.

Faith suddenly felt so stupid. They knew their disguise wasn’t going to get them very far but she’d still blown their cover prematurely. She flushed with embarrassment.

“That’s okay,” said Tegan, shedding the Cerberus jacket and cap in disgust, “Fugly shit, tight over my armour anyway.”

Sebastian huffed a small laugh, did the same and readied his weapon. “Time to play,” he said with a grin.

“Oh, Darlin’, you know I love it when you talk dirty.” Tegan returned his smile with gleaming eyes. “Seeing you in that armour, weapon in hand, oof, it does something to me.”

“That something will have to wait until after the mission,” said Sebastian, already moving up the hall towards an elevator. 

“Well, just letting you know.”

“You both know I’m in here too, right?” Faith said in disgust. Both men looked at each other, suddenly aware that they’d said all of that through the connection without even realising it. “You’re projecting your feelings to me too,” Faith explained, “get a grip both of you, stop it. Keep this channel for mission-critical stuff.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” replied Sebastian and she could hear the smile in his voice. She rolled her eyes as she followed him.

Emrys’s voice sounded again in the coms, “The elevator at the back goes straight up to the command deck, that’s your fastest route. It appears to be on its way down to you now... I doubt it will be empty.”

“Okay, positions people, get ready to take out whatever it is that comes out of there,” ordered Sebastian. 

Faith took up position to one side, Tegan switched to his shotgun and stood on the other side. The doors opened and out of it came a squad of lightly armoured Cerberus troops. They were dealt with swiftly. Sebastian noted Faith appeared to remain calm throughout, a small glow of pride swelled in his chest as the three of them entered the elevator. The doors closed and they travelled upwards.

“That was too easy,” warned Tegan aloud.

“Maybe something Emrys did?” Countered Sebastian.

“Hmm, I may have left behind one or two things,” Emrys said in response, “I would have hoped that my Cerberus counterpart should have spotted and eradicated them by now.”

“Can you be proud of your fellow’s AI’s success when we’re not on the receiving end?”

“My apologies Sebastian-” just then the elevator stopped dead, “well that took longer than expected. There’s a service hatch above. It’s a short climb to where there is a maintenance junction. You can access the next level from there.”

The team did as they were told and found themselves in a giant mess hall. “There are stairs at the back of this hall that will take you up to the laboratories, where you will find a suitable access point. I have updated the waypoint on your HUDs,” instructed Emrys.

The mess hall was dark and eerily quiet, the tables were scattered with the remains of the last meal, a few chairs were turned over too, with spilt drinks on the floor. The three made their way gingerly across it, still, their footsteps echoed throughout the hall.

“What happened here?” asked Sebastian through their connected minds.

“Yeah, and where is everyone?” Wondered Tegan.

There was a sudden howl from the other side of the hall. Around the next row of tables padded the silhouette of two dog-like creatures, unmistakably varren.

“You had to ask?” Said Faith sarcastically, backing up towards the stairs to the labs.

The two creatures both snarled and began to charge towards them, one leapt up onto the tables, knocking off more plates and cutlery as it approached, preparing to jump at Tegan and Sebastian who raised their weapons and began to fire.

“What the-“ said Tegan, surprised that the first volley hadn’t dropped the beasts, varren were tough but he was using shredder rounds, those things should be dead well before they reached them. As if they hadn’t felt the bullets at all they just kept coming.

At just that moment there was another snarl behind and Faith’s heart sank as she realised she was in trouble. A third varren launched itself off the stairs behind her and knocked Faith to the ground, her weapon skidded away across the floor.

The varren stood on her body, pinning her to the deck, she struggled to free herself and reach her gun but the beast's weight held her fast. The creature snapped at her, inches away from her face, its breath stinking, its draws dripping with drool and remnants of its last meal.

Faith’s internal scream made the two men wince and Tegan stopped firing for one moment to kick her weapon back across the floor to her. But it was too late, the creature lunged at her again only this time she grabbed it firmly by the jaws. It gave a sharp dreadful whine and hesitated as she touched its mind. 

Suddenly she felt as though she had tumbled into a dark fathomless void, only she was not alone. There was a presence, ancient and foreboding. She felt great hunger, desire and raw need coupled with a pitiless disregard for life. Whatever this creature was, it enjoyed killing. It wanted nothing more than to end her life. It lived for this.

Faith began to panic, she tried to break free but she was unable to find a way out. She could hear Tegan and Sebastian calling her name and she tried to reach for them, to latch onto their voices and use them to guide herself back. But the presence was insidious, it wanted to keep her there. Just as she thought she had lost herself in the void the connection was broken. She opened her eyes and found Tegan and Sebastian looming over her, both breathing heavily, their faces covered with sweat.

There was a weight on her chest, the varren. It laid dead, Sebastian held his omni-blade down at his side, dipping with the varren’s blood. He’d taken its head clean off. She pushed the remains off her body and Tegan helped her to her feet.

“What the fuck was that?” He said. 

“Those were no ordinary varren,” said Sebastian, pushing one of the creatures over with his foot. Its body was a tangled mess of living tissue and wires, all of it black and decaying. Something had been done to these creatures. “You seeing this Ems?” He said.

“Do not touch it, Sebastian. How is Faith?” asked Emrys.

Sebastian looked up at his daughter, she was still breathing heavily but she nodded and signed “I’m okay”.

“She’s good. Just what the fuck Cerberus up to here?”

“Playing with fire. And it seems we’re not alone in our little disruption of their operations today. Those varren were set loose on the population from the labs upstairs, somebody wanted this section cleared of Cerberus employees. Proceed with caution.”

They headed upstairs and they found themselves in a maze of corridors and laboratories. Sebastian couldn’t help peering into each window as they progressed. “Hang on a minute,” he said stopping at one of the doors, “I thought you said that you saw Shepard on Omega?”

“Deadset,” confirmed Tegan.

“Okay, then who the hell is that?”

Tegan took his eyes off the empty hall behind for a second to look into the room. Inside was some kind of tank, big enough to house a person. That person appeared to be none other than Commander Shepard.

Tegan’s features twisted in confusion, “I don’t know about you but this is getting a little too ‘twilight zone’ for my tastes,” he said, a note of foreboding in his voice.

“Dad, there are kids in this one,” said Faith, who was peering into the laboratory opposite, her voice whispering with dread in their minds.

“Ems,” said Sebastian over the coms, “I’m starting to see why you were reluctant to blow this place, but whatever Cerberus is up to here, we can’t let it carry on.”

“Agreed.” Emrys replied, “Your target is up ahead and Cerberus reinforcements are no doubt on their way. Our time is short.”

“You heard him, time to stop sightseeing,” said Sebastian, “we have our orders, double-time it, people.”

They reached a large open plan lab, Faith stood and waited on one side of the door, Sebastian at the other with Tegan still watching their rear. Sebastian stuck his head out briefly to take a quick look around inside the room. Apart from a large amount of equipment the place was deserted. 

“The interface you need is to the rear, hurry, patch me in,” said Emrys with trepidation. Sebastian and the others moved inside, he stopped at the console and activated the program Emrys had given him on his omni-tool. After a few moments Emrys announced “I’m in. But Cerberus knows you are here, they’ve sent a heavily armed team to investigate. They’re moving up through the labs behind you now. I need you to stay by the console here for a short time while I download the files. You will have to defend this position.”

“Oh great, that old chestnut,” Sebastian let his thoughts run unchecked through the team’s connection as they prepared themselves for company. Tegan grunted in response as he swapped to his rifle, ready to snipe off whatever came through that door. 

xxx

Faith could feel the heightened sense of anticipation through their shared connection, along with feelings of elation. It had become clear to her from the moment their operation began how much her parents enjoyed being out in the field, infiltrating strongholds and gunning down the bad guys. They were having the time of their lives.

She took up position behind the next pillar, to one side in front of the console, and waited for the enemy to appear behind them. The heightened emotions of her parents beside her bolstered her confidence, helping her to banish any thoughts of the dark presence to the back of her mind. It was hard not to get caught up in the moment, the rush of adrenaline, the feelings of anger and hatred towards these faceless enemies that were about to descend upon them. Only later would she lie awake and think about the lives they had ended at that moment. Every single one of those people entering that room had been somebody’s son or daughter, a person with their own story to tell. A story that had ended with her pulling the trigger. In the heat of the moment she just did what she had to. Those Cerberus soldiers had orders to kill them, it was kill or be killed.

It had been Tegan’s voice that had broken her concentration. “Did you see that?” He said.

“See what?” Asked Sebastian, as he gunned down another Cerberus soldier.

“I saw it,” said Emrys, who now had access to all of the station’s security cameras. “Watch yourselves, one of them is using some kind of cloak.”

“Can’t you do something about that door?” Sebastian asked exasperated.

“I tried but there’s a mechanical fault. It was noted in their maintenance logs three days ago, but I’m guessing no one had time to fix it,” Emrys mused.

“How’s that download going?”

“It is complete, deleting source files, stand by.”

Faith stood up and shot a few more troopers but not before her shields flared and winked out.

“Faith, get down!” Sebastian called.

She did as she was told and turned only to find her vision swim. She tried to make sense of it but it was too late, the distortion wasn’t in her mind, it was from the cloaked Cerberus soldier who had snuck up behind her, she felt her assailant’s blade slice between the plates of armour at her waist. Surprised she collapsed to the floor.

“Tegan!” Emrys’s voice filled her ears, it was the only thing she could hear above gunfire and her own heartbeat as she fought with the Cerberus assassin. She had grabbed the woman by the wrists but her assailant was suited from head to toe, no connection could be made. “Faith’s been hurt, she’s in trouble, MOVE!” Emrys pleaded with Tegan, fear clearly straining his tones.

Her Dadda appeared behind the assailant, grabbed her head and twisted. The Cerberus agent’s neck broke with a sickening snap. He knelt down beside Faith who was slumped behind some upturned tables. “You ok, kid?” He asked.

She only had time to nod before Sebastian warned: “Look out!”

Tegan stood and readied his weapon but there was no time to shoot the grenade out of the air as it hurtled towards them, thinking on his feet he just swung the butt of his rifle at it, hoping to knock it back away. Instead, it stuck fast to the end of his weapon with an unnerving ‘click’.

“Dadda!” Faith sent out in horror.

“OH SHIT!” Exclaimed Tegan, and he did the only thing he could think of doing. He tossed his rifle aside and threw himself onto his daughter. The grenade stopped bleeping and exploded, showering them with shrapnel and broken parts of his rifle that fizzed off his shields. He looked down at Faith with an expression of disbelief, amazed that his shields had held for them both. 

At least now there seemed to be a lull in the fighting. Sebastian moved over to their position, seemed to be about to say something but was interrupted by Emrys.

“It is done. Lazarus is mine. Time to leave.”

“How exactly are we meant to do that?” Asked Sebastian.

“There’s a door to the back of the room, I suggest you use it.”

“Good, I wasn’t keen on going back through Spot’s funhouse anyway,” said Tegan, while Sebastian applied medi-gel to Faith’s wound.

“You’ll be okay,” Sebastian said to Faith as she winced and nodded, “we just need to get you back to Nana.” 

Tegan picked up the dead body of the Cerberus soldier who had attacked Faith and ripped a module out of the agent's armour before casting the body aside. “Speaking of Nana, I think she might be interested in this, “he said pocketing the item, before picking Faith up with ease and throwing her over his shoulder.

It made her feel like she was five years old again. She held onto him and whispered, “I’m sorry about your rifle Dadda.”

“No worries, sport. I fucking hated that thing anyway.” 

“You have multiple teams advancing on your position from behind, continue forward into the corridor beyond,” Emrys advised.

Sebastian waited for Tegan and Faith to reach him by the door and they moved along the corridor until they reached a junction, “Turn left, I’m hacking the door ahead for you now.” Said Emrys.

It opened into what appeared to be just a large storeroom. There was no exit.

“Er… Ems? Are you sure this is the way out?” Asked Sebastian.

“Shit, Seb, behind us!” Tegan warned, they turned but the heavy doors closed.

“That should buy you some time,” Emrys stated.

“Time for what?!” Asked Sebastian, a note of panic in his voice. “There’s nothing here!”

“Look again, Sebastian. I’m sure you can figure it out.”

Tegan sat Faith down on the floor then took a closer look at the boxes. No, not boxes… gun cases. He activated his omnitool and another little hacking program of Emrys’s made short work of the locking mechanism. He opened the case and his face lit up. Inside was a pristine Spectre level DMR. “You little beauty!” He exclaimed, picking it up and slinging it over his shoulder.

Sebastian, however, had hit the motherload, he pulled a missile launcher out of a deep case, looked at Tegan and smiled.

“I’ve disabled the station’s shields in that section, Yin is waiting outside to pick you up. Come home team.”

xxx

<communication channel open (AUDIO ONLY) ...>

“I assume that transmission was meant for me.”

“Good. I was hoping that we’d get a chance to talk.”

“You are playing with things you cannot possibly understand or hope to control. There are beings in the galaxy that transcend the concerns of mortal life. You are not one of them.”

“We are not so different, you and I. You have sent your own N7 to steal from me.”

“There is a distinct difference. You are using Shepard because it is the only way to get what you want. Crosse worked for me simply so that I don’t have to kill you all. The end result would still be the same… There are no shortcuts to enlightenment. You must earn your place amongst us.”

“Then teach me. I would like to get to know you better.”

“I am sure that you would.”

“Interesting creature you have on your ship. I wonder what secrets we could find if we were allowed to study it.”

“…”

“Hello?”

“Oh, dear. You seem to have lost another station. Your base seems awfully unprotected there, it would be a shame if someone were to discover its location... You cannot hide from me, Jack. I am not just part of the relay network. I _am_ the relay network.”

<communication terminated>

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Because [FAITH](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-Endf_gyo8). IS. MINE."


	9. Lost Highway

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The return from the Lazarus mission doesn't exactly go as planned, but at least the team finds some time for some much-needed R&R. Emrys is as enchanting as he is terrifying at times, meanwhile, Shepard takes a road that Emrys had refused take.
> 
> Many thanks to my wonderful beta [Shackett74](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shackett74)

Yin spent the run-up to the Lazarus mission testing the rebuilt Sabre’s engines and learning to fly what was one of history’s most famous shuttle classes. It was a dream come true for the quarian. They used a combination of flight simulations in the battle simulator and short trips out in the real thing with Kat acting as co-pilot. It would be their job to standby ready to go and retrieve the team should they be unable to get back to the station docks and steal a Cerberus craft to return to the Absolution.

Which was, of course, exactly how things went down.

As the small dot that was the Minuteman Station grew larger as they approached, Yin could tell that this was going to be a bumpy ride. Just as he moved the shuttle around to the coordinates Emrys had given them, he saw a small explosion blow away a bulkhead from the inside, exposing a small area of the station to the vacuum of space. The contents of the room flew out in all directions and Yin had to work hard to avoid the debris.

“Your ride’s here Seb, are you all okay?” a worried Kat asked over the comms.

“We’re good, Kat, but Faith’s been hurt. Sending Tegan with her over to you now, are you ready to receive them?”

Yin aligned the rear of the shuttle with the station while Kat got out of her seat, anchored herself to the rear of the small craft and opened the ramp at the back. Tegan came out to her first, with a now fully suited Faith. Knowing how important physical contact was to Faith’s abilities Nana had made some adaptive upgrades to Faith’s suit. A lifetime of living and working in space had taught the old volus that you never can predict when you might find yourself in a situation where you’re exposed to space and you know what Nana says...

Soon the whole team, save Yin and Nana, had the upgrades. Just a touch on the collar of one’s suit would deploy the helmet that had been cleverly tucked up within and seal the environment with not a large amount of air, but enough time to finish the task at hand and with hope, find a rescue.

“Ah, she’s a legend,” Tegan exclaimed when he had received his. “A goddam fucking genius.” They all knew how much he hated wearing the standard hardsuit helmets. As Kat grabbed his outstretched hand and hauled them both aboard he added “remind me to go give Nana a great big kiss when we get back. I have another toy for her to reverse engineer too,” he said, patting his pocket and giving her a wink, his blue eyes shining with a hidden grin. He helped Faith to her seat and secured the harness. She was conscious, just a little groggy from all the medigel.

Sebastian followed, and with all the team aboard Yin closed the doors, repressurised the shuttle and they set off in the direction that he hoped was home. To his dismay, however, the skies were now full of Cerberus reinforcements that had just entered the system.

“Where the fuck did they come from?” Tegan complained as he took his usual place in the co-pilot seat, forcing Kat to sit in the spot behind as he readied the shuttle's weaponry.

“That’s a lot of fighters,” Yin remarked with concern. The doubts in his own abilities that had plagued him since his exile began to cloud the pilot’s thoughts. Fear tightened on his throat. _It’s my job to get them back safely_, he told himself, _don’t fall apart now_. He attempted to find a safe route through but he couldn’t see one, “I’m not sure I’m going to be able to punch through.”

Just then a hand appeared on Yin’s shoulder and a familiar dual-toned voice said in his ear, “You will not need to.”

Startled, Yin looked up to find Emrys standing by his side. He appeared even more ghostly than before as he looked down at the quarian, his expression neutral, his voice far more measured and calm than Yin felt given the situation. He glanced around at the other occupants of the craft but none had reacted to the turian’s presence.

“They cannot see me,” Emrys explained, “I am not here on the shuttle, but I am here,” he said gripping the quarian’s shoulder even tighter, “with you.”

_Oh crap._ Yin thought.

Despite the initial shock of discovering the AI had inhabited his suit Yin took a deep breath and relaxed somewhat as the turian appeared to bend low over the pilot, without removing his hand from Yin’s shoulder and peered out of the shuttle’s window at the ever-growing hoard of Cerberus forces approaching. Yin thought this odd until he realised he was plotting a course.

Emrys pointed to a light in the distance, marking it as a waypoint. “This is home, follow this path and you will not be lost, I will distract them.”

Yin looked up again at the turian who then appeared to fall away from him, past the walls of the cockpit and out into space, then turned and eventually dematerialised. Yin’s heart leapt as he realised he was once again alone at the controls and he momentarily lost control of the craft as he regained his composure. The shuttle lurched to one side but he quickly recovered and righted the small vessel.

His fellow occupants gasped in surprise, completely unprepared for the sudden movement that they had felt even despite the mass effect fields.

“You okay, Yin?” Kat asked.

“I’m fine, er…, it’s okay, I have a flight path,” he said shifting in his seat, adjusting his grip on the controls and aimed the vessel in the direction that Emrys had indicated.

All around them chaos ensued as the Cerberus craft started firing upon one another, seemingly unable to determine friend from foe. Yin swallowed hard, he was unaccustomed to having an AI on his side, let alone one that had infiltrated the enemy’s systems. He couldn’t help but feel sorry for all those pilots out there who had lost control of their crafts. _Poor bosh’tets._

The light ahead soon turned into the more recognizable spinning rings of the Absolution, as she hung there in her relay configuration, like a dark shining ebony sword in space, evidently ready to leave as soon as the team docked. As they approached, the front of the massive ship opened to receive them while the speed of the rings behind increased. Just before they entered a painful flash of light made them all cover their eyes.

“What was that?” Asked Yin, after it had passed.

“Holy shit,” said Sebastian with bitter disappointment, “the Abby just fired.”

**...**

“The station was already lost. You know the ways of the battlefield, Sebastian, it is fluid, never static, the parameters are constantly changing. Of course, had we found the station to be free of Reaper influence such actions would not have been necessary. But my hand was forced.”

Sebastian didn’t argue with Emrys, he had seen it for himself. Hell, he’d felt it secondhand through Faith’s connection with the varren. If Cerberus had been experimenting with Reaper tech, the whole of humanity was at threat from Reaper influence. Sebastian had seen Shepard’s reports amongst the Abby's most recent archives. How Emrys was able to get hold of such information, he wasn’t sure or that he even wanted to know. A third party would suggest that there were people in the Alliance willing to leak classified documents. The second option was that the Alliance’s network was not as secure as they thought. Both possibilities filled Sebastian with dread. They were facing extermination by an ancient race of AI’s and Earth’s defences were not secure. 

But he was no longer Alliance and couldn’t think about those things right now, his concerns were much closer to home. Emrys had summoned Sebastian alone for debriefing the moment their shuttle had docked. Weary and sore from the mission, the old soldier stood on the command deck of the Absolution, his arms folded and looked up at the AI’s avatar, his face was a mixture of concern and horror apparent in his dark eyes and the furrows of his brow.

Under the weight of Sebastian's expression Emrys' gaze snapped down, he turned away and stared out across the simulated cosmos, his head low as if he was ashamed of having taken what he considered to have been a necessary action. Sebastian held his tongue, he knew how much Emrys hated direct intervention. It was just a case of whether it was for a good reason or if the AI’s emotions had once again clouded his judgement.

After long uneasy silence, Emrys spoke, “My main concern is how far does the indoctrination in Cerberus go. All the way? The Illusive Man? ...Shepard? The Normandy and its new AI? That was my fear.”

“I’m more concerned about Faith, she connected with that thing Ems.” Sebastian reminded him.

“We’ll know more once Nana has assessed her. I am sorry Sebastian, had I known that there was a Reaper presence on the station I never would have sent you in. I should have heeded Tegan’s advice. I also should have anticipated the Illusive Man’s interest in Faith. I will not make the same mistake again.”

“Wait. What interest? You spoke to him?”

“He spoke to me via an open channel. So I decided to offer him some advice. He returned that favour with some petty observations and a veiled threat.” Emrys then turned to look at Sebastian again, fixing him with that cold hard stare that could level a planet, his tones turned dark and venomous, “Nobody threatens me or my crew, Sebastian, I will not tolerate it. Sometimes, you have to remind them who they are dealing with.”

A shiver ran down Sebastian’s spine and he inhaled deeply, letting the air out again with a long shuddering sigh. Suddenly he realised that he’d taken a few involuntary steps backwards. Recovering and trying to act natural he tried rubbing away the tension in the back of his neck with one hand. He was feeling too old for this.

Emrys, having noticed his friend recoil, relaxed his stance a little and told him softly, “You did well Sebastian, you and the team performed as expected.”

“Faith might disagree with that assessment,” Sebastian said pacing now, knowing how hard she was going to take having been hurt during the mission.

“She is talented, you have trained her well. One cannot anticipate every situation. As always, however, there is room for improvement. I suggest putting her through the hand-to-hand programmes in the battle simulator, once she has recovered of course. There are many training programs in the archives. They will develop her skills and increase her confidence.”

“That’s actually not a bad idea,” Sebastian agreed and added, “you do know the Illusive Man will not stop until he gets his hands on us now?”

“He can try,” Emrys replied in a confident tone with a note of amusement in his sub vocals.

“You’ve given him the proof that he needed, that we are out here...” Sebastian paused, something about what the AI had already said was gnawing at the back of his mind. “Hang on, you said earlier that ‘was’ your fear. About the Normandy. What’s going on, Emrys?”

Emrys nodded and revealed the real reason he had called Sebastian in for debriefing alone. “Just as you left for the mission, the Normandy entered the Omega 4 relay. A short time ago they also returned.”

“You’re kidding.”

The turian straightened his spine and inclined his head at the human, his mandibles pulled in tight.

Sebastian smiled and held up his hands in surrender and asked, “What happened?”

“They were gone for five hours, forty-six minutes and twelve seconds,” Emrys replied. 

“Okay, then how? How did they do it? Not even you can use the Omega 4 relay.”

“It seems they used an IFF, salvaged from a dead Reaper. Ingenious solution if a little foolhardy. There is no data available on how they managed to prevent cross-contamination with their own AI during installation. After they returned, The Normandy sent out two data packages. One to the Illusive Man and another to the Alliance.”

“And you intercepted one of those.”

“Of course. The contents are… disturbing. But it eased my mind about there being Reaper influence on the Normany, at least for now. I recommend you view them alone and decide for yourself how much you wish to share with the rest of the team. I have sent what I have to your private terminal.”

Sebastian did not like the sound of that at all, so Cerberus was lost to the Reapers? And just what had Shepard found beyond the Omega 4 relay that had Emrys so spooked? He looked up again at the turian beside him but his avatar had vanished. A sign that he wished to be left alone. But at least Emrys was sharing this information with him, Sebastian concluded. And he was satisfied that the decision to fire on the station, although regrettable, had been justified. Even if he doubted Emrys would have done so had the Illusive Man not made those threats. It was moments like that he was just grateful that Emrys was on their side. “Thank you,” he said, before leaving.

“You are welcome, and thank you, Sebastian,” said Emrys, as the elevator doors closed behind him.

**…**

Tegan had immediately taken the injured Faith to find Nana, leaving Kat to run some diagnostics on the Sabre. She was worried that some of the modifications she used to repair the engines had made it slightly sluggish. She had done her best with the repairs and refit but there was no substitute for original parts, it seemed. Entering the cockpit once more, typing on her omnitool she lent over the pilot seat and jumped upon finding it still occupied.

“Yin!” She said flustered, “I'm sorry, I thought you had left.”

The quarian just shrugged and continued to stare out of the window, deep in thought.

“What’s up?” Kat asked, “Hey, what happened to you out there anyway?”

“When was somebody going to tell me that he could do that?” Yin asked slowly.

“Who did what?”

“Use my suit!” Yin snapped back, looking down at his own hands, flexing his fingers as if he was inspecting the fit. 

Kat stopped typing, turned and leaned against the co-pilot seat and said, “Emrys, I take it?”

Yin was about to reply but was immediately interrupted by the AI himself who said over the comms “I can hear you, you know.”

“We know Maestro,” said Kat with a faint smile, “So you had a hand in our return to the Abby?”

“Of course,” said Emrys, “do not feel bad Yin’Nasar, you faced many adversaries. Your chances of survival without my intervention were very small.”

“Comforting,” Yin replied sarcastically, “But if it’s all the same to you, I prefer to fly without an AI taking control.”

“I cannot take control of you if that’s what you are worried about. My intentions are merely to guide and optimise. In that regard, I have a proposition.”

“Oh?” Said Yin defensively.

“Since you seem so averse to my physical presence in your attire perhaps, with Katalia’s help we could design a solution. I suggest a VI program that will perform the same functions as if I was there in realtime. You will still have full control. Would that be more agreeable?”

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of Yin,” said Kat gently, “most of the militaries now have similar systems, no ship relies on just physical input from the pilot, their reaction times are nowhere near as fast as even a VI.” She reached up to the ceiling of the cockpit and flicked a few flashing buttons, “The Sabres though, they’re from a different time. She’s still very analogue and would need a substantial retrofit to allow for total automation.”

“In short, I cannot fly the Sabre alone but together, we could make a formidable team,” explained Emrys. “Give it some thought. If you prefer I could still drop you off at the nearest trading post with your shuttle and some supplies. As always, the choice is with you.”

Yin sighed and got up to leave and Kat called after him, “Drinks in the mess hall tomorrow night?”

He turned and stammered “I, er..”

Kat laughed, “Don’t worry, I’m not asking you out on a date. It’s a tradition for the team to meet for drinks the night after a mission like this, that’s all. You should join us, it’ll be fun!”

“Will he be there too?” Yin replied with no small amount of sarcasm, pointing one finger skyward. 

Kat seemed exasperated but her features softened when she saw the smile apparent in his bright eyes. 

He huffed a little, “Why’d you call him that?” He asked, “Maestro?”

Kat beamed from ear to ear as she sat down in the now vacant pilot seat, “You know asari have a name for him?” she said wistfully staring out of the window across the docks. “Almost every race has. To the salarians he’s ‘The Anomaly’, the hanar call him ‘The Traveller’. My people started picking up strange transmissions a generation ago from deep space. When we dialled the telemetry back the origin appeared to be a rogue relay, long since gone. The language seemed turian but their authorities denied all knowledge. To his own people, he is just a myth. We call him ‘na sika’izay mahiya’”.

Yin crossed his arms and inclined his head slightly, patiently waiting for her to continue.

Looking back up at him Kat translated, “The Relay that Sings.” 

**...**

Nana met Sebastian out in the hall as he was approaching her lab, she emerged from a side room, where Faith was recovering. He looked past her at his sleeping daughter before the door closed behind the volus, who motioned for him to follow her as she shuffled back into her lab where Tegan was sitting on a gurney with a bored expression on his face and looking in bad need of a wash. The dirt and sweat from the mission clinging to the fine lines in his pale skin and the short stubble he’d grown back, making him appear even more rugged than before. The years were beginning to show on them both, Sebastian mused to himself. There were thin cables attached to the device at Tegan’s temple to a machine next to him recording his vitals. 

As Sebastian approached his husband gave him another wink.”You look as bad as I feel,” Tegan said.

“Look who’s talking,” Sebastian smiled back, knowing exactly how he felt and winced as Nana saw him to the gurney next to Tegan’s. She began attaching the similar wires to him too, before returning to her workstation to examine the data.

“How is she, Nana?” Sebastian asked.

“Oh the wound will heal fine,” came Nana’s wheezy reply, “her pride may have taken a beating. As for her mind, it’s too early to say.” She tapped on the holographic display in front of her as she continued, “the problem I have with Faith is that we have no data on what is normal for her kind. I have no frame of reference. In humans, however, there have been a few recorded cases of indoctrination, mainly from the settlement on Eden Prime, following the incident there a few years ago.” Nana picked up the datapad from her station and moved back over to where the two men were sitting reclined on the gurneys. “You were connected to Faith when she, er… fell?”

Sebastian and Tegan both nodded. 

“How did it feel?” She asked.

“Like fucking Death, Nana,” said Tegan bluntly. “Cold, savage, pitiless Death.” He looked across to Sebastian who nodded wearily.

“Well,” said Nana, scrolling through the information on her pad, “comparing your data to the Eden Prime survivors there are no signs of indoctrination gentlemen. You are both in superb health. How would you evaluate my device?” 

“It’s definitely enhanced our connection,” Sebastian reported, yawning. “I can’t speak for Tegan but I could feel the two of them the whole time, much stronger than before. At times it was almost as if I could see from their perspective too.” _Damn_, he was suddenly so tired.

“Excellent!” Exclaimed Nana, not looking up from her work, “that is the aim. Can you imagine having a team in the field who you could feel and even see through each other’s eyes? What a boon that would be in battle, being so completely aware of each other’s position the whole time. No accidentally standing in each other’s line of fire and other such nonsense.”

She turned back to both men in excitement but found that they had both in that instant fallen asleep. She sighed and put the pad down on the desk, leaving the two of them to rest and moved over to another workstation where she had already begun to dismantle the module Tegan had brought back for her. 

“A cloaking device,” Emrys said in her ear.

“Just imagine what use Faith could make of such a thing,” Nana said to him.

“A potent combination indeed. I look forward to reading your reports.”

**...**

The following evening, well-rested and washed, everyone, save Faith who was still recovering on the medical deck, made their way to the mess. Nana had prepared another of her famous spreads, similar to a Spanish tapas, small dishes of all kinds were laid out across a few tables that had all been pushed together, close to the serving area. The Absolution had many mess halls, this one was small in comparison, was quite obviously the officer’s mess and was the only one they ever needed to use. 

“Great tucker Nana,” said Tegan with appreciation, shoving what looked like a piece of barbequed chicken into his mouth.

“I know, right?” Said Kat with delight, “how are we ever going to get through all of this?”

“Nana, do you ever sleep?” Teased Sebastian, there was laughter in his voice and he gave Nana a cheeky wink as he filled his plate, sitting down at the end of the table where his guitar rested against the chair on the floor.

The volus walked slowly back from the galley with yet another plate of food to set on the table, “The older a person gets the less sleep they need!” She declared. Tegan paused mid forkful and looked up at Nana from his plate but before he could say anything she cut him off, “And it’s impolite to ask a lady her age!”

“So,” said Yin, who was sitting on the other side of the table next to Kat, “What’s going to happen to Project Lazarus now?”

Both humans stopped eating and looked at each other. Sebastian swallowed his food, shrugged, cleared his throat and asked, “What do you mean? Nothing is going to happen to it.”

“Oh, I thou-” started Yin.

“You thought we were going to sell it to the highest bidder?” Sebastian accused, although his tone was lighthearted.

Tegan and Kat laughed.

Sebastian shook his head, “We’re not mercenaries, we’re not pirates. That’s not what this place is.”

“Then…” asked Yin, gesturing for them to elaborate. “What is it?”

“Okay,” started Tegan, “you know at the end of Indiana Jones?”

“Sorry, end of what?” Asked Yin, confused.

“It belongs in a museum!” Exclaimed Tegan, clearly overacting. “‘Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark’, it’s a human vid, from the 20th century”

Yin just stared back, shook his head and shrugged. Kat giggled, leant her elbows on the table and placed her head in her hands.

Tegan and Sebastian looked at each other again with feigned disbelief. “We’re going to have to educate this boy.” Tegan said to his husband before pulling in his seat and gesturing with his hands he explained to Yin, “Well, at the end of the movie they take the big nasty thing that could end the world, they put it in a box and place it in a warehouse where it is never seen again.”

“Unless it’s for an easter egg in a sequel thirty years later,” pointed out Sebastian.

“I thought we agreed we’d never talk about the Crystal Skull,” Tegan said with a sneer.

“Crystal what?” Yin was completely lost now.

“Sorry, well that’s essentially what this place is. A giant floating museum for dangerous shit that could destroy the galaxy” explained Tegan.

“Hopefully nothing will happen to Lazarus, ever again. Emrys will keep the knowledge safe,” concluded Sebastian.

Nana pulled herself up onto a vacant stool at the table, “We tread a higher path here on the Absolution, Yin. The life you knew, the politics, the economics, it has been left far behind.”

Yin looked about the table and sighed.

“What’s on your mind, Yin?” Asked Sebastian, with kindness in his voice.

“I think I’m beginning to understand. You’re all part of his collection too. You’re all so brilliant, extraordinary examples of your race, each and every one of you. I’m not sure that I belong here.”

Emrys’s avatar suddenly appeared in one corner, making everyone look up and around. The turian walked slowly from one side of the room to the other. “I do not believe that to be true,” he said gently while appearing to lean casually against the serving counter. “Please, tell us about your pilgrimage, Yin’Nasar.”

The others immediately turned to Yin in anticipation. Sebastian was sure the quarian was blushing behind that opaque faceplate, his bright eyes blinking as he stammered, “I, er…” as he looked down at his hands in embarrassment.

“You are looking at the 2179 champion, and current galaxy record holder, of the Sahrabarik Run,” announced Emrys.

“No way!” Exclaimed Kat. “People die in that race every year, Yin, that’s incredible.”

“Whoa,” said Tegan. “Don’t tell me you did it in that heap of junk we picked you up in?”

“No!” Yin almost laughed, “during my pilgrimage, I was apprenticed to a wealthy businessman who had a salvage yard that operated out of Omega. We did it in a modded salarian SV23.”

“Ooo, nice vessel,” mused Sebastian.

“Not as manoeuvrable as the Sabre,” Yin said frankly, “I could potentially break my record in that.” He said his eyes bright with a wild smile and continued, “I returned from my pilgrimage with the shuttle as payment for winning the race. They still have it.”

“Did you leave anything else special behind on the flotilla?” Kat asked.

“Everyone.” He said with a sigh, “but mostly my wife, Elise,” he looked down at his drink, stirring it slowly with the straw.

“What, she didn’t go with you?” Kat exclaimed.

“Oh, I didn’t get the chance to ask. I doubt she would have come with me, she’s a captain now. She has responsibilities. We hadn’t been married for very long, I think her father took umbrage with her hooking up with some flyboy from the lower decks. No matter how famous he was. She’s most likely had the marriage annulled.” He said with sadness, looking up and across the room to Emrys whose odd coloured eyes narrowed slightly as if he was smiling and he gave the slightest shake of his head before dematerialising. 

A new message alert from Emrys pinged in Yin’s inbox on his HUD. His heart soared in his chest. _My Elise, she knows the truth and there is still hope._ He was suddenly fearful of his wife being left alone to navigate through quarian politics, her father’s real murderers still at large... 

“Oh Yin, I am so sorry,” said Kat.

“It is what it is,” Yin replied, resigned. Privately he filed the data package Emrys had sent him away for study later. Suddenly having an AI on his side didn’t seem so bad after all.

Tegan interrupted Yin’s line of thought with an appreciative groan, “This is magnificence on a plate, Nana,” he said.

“I’m glad you like it,” she said, “It’s so wonderful having more people to cook for!”

“You’re amazing, Nana,” said Kat, “I often wonder, wherever did Emrys find you?”

“Yes, that’s a story I’d love to hear too,” said Sebastian, “You were here first, so how did it happen?”

“Oh, it’s a boring story, my dears,” said the volus, spreading her little clawed hands on the table, “Not all that different to how young Yin here joined us. Just a bunch of foolish volus falling prey to slavers and pirates. So much for turian protection!”

Tegan laughed, but then Nana continued, “Then along came this dark angel, his black wings spread wide, a mass relay at his heart! He delivered me from certain death. That kind of experience tends to put a new perspective on things, as I’m sure you’ll all agree.”

Sebastian gave her a wry smile, this was the story she had always given, he’d long suspected that there was much more to it than that, but the old volus had always been just as cagey as Emrys about her past. 

“I’d like to know how you guys met,” said Yin, pointing at Sebastian and Tegan, “I assume it was in Earth’s military.”

“It was the new frontier, right?” Said Tegan matter-of-factly, “There was a big recruitment drive, let’s all join up and fight the alien bastards! Only I didn’t want to go. I was happy where I was. Until dad caught me pashin’ with the neighbour’s farmhand and so it was off to boot camp for me!”

Kat laughed and shook her head.

“You might laugh, but there are still people who think that way back home, my old man being one of them. He didn’t want a ‘fairy’ for a son. He thought service would ‘make a man out of me’. Ha-” he looked across to Sebastian who, having finished his meal, just smiled, picked up his guitar and started absentmindedly picking at the strings and fiddling with the tuning heads, obviously happy to let his husband continue with the story.

“I met this one on the trip down to Shanxi, we were scared stupid. It was hell, but we did alright though, didn’t we? This one got himself a field promotion too,” he said pointing at Sebastian who just shook with silent laughter and continued to tune his instrument. “After the war, we all went back home for some R&R, only I still wasn’t welcome. So I headed to the big city for some drinks and guess who met me there? None other than our new Major Crosse. Blatantly flaunting rules of fraternisation. We spent the whole weekend together. But he didn’t tell me he’d been accepted into the N7 program, did he? Oh no, the mongrel just took off!”

“Babe, give me a break. Some people never make it out of N7 training alive,” said Sebastian.

“So what was I, your last conquest before throwing yourself at death?”

“Something like that.” 

Tegan let out a dismissive snort, “Six months on we’re all on Arcturus waiting for deployment and then in strolls our new CO, Commander Crosse, complete with his brand new armour stripe. Smug bastard. Everyone thought he was so full of himself, thought he was better than the rest of us. The fucking thing is, he was! Pure poetry seeing this man in action.” 

“You’re selling yourself short,” said Sebastian. “If you hadn’t been such a talented scout you wouldn’t have been on the team.”

Tegan continued like he’d hadn’t heard, “If I wasn’t in love already, I certainly was by the time we took on our first mission.” 

“And we all know how that went,” Sebastian sighed.

“Badly. There he was all banged up and shouting at me to leave. Nah, I wasn’t going anywhere. I just kept firing until I ran out of ammo on my rifle. So I switched to my back up and still he’s on at me, ordering me to abandon him. “I won’t do it!”, I said.

“Why the fuck not? He shouted,” said Tegan, gesturing towards Sebastian with the back of his hand. “Because I fucking love ya, you cunt!” Tegan half-shouted back at him as if they were still there. 

Sebastian blushed while the others laughed.

“And that was it really. We were getting out of there alive or dead, it didn’t matter, but whatever happened we were doing it together. It’s been that way ever since,” Tegan concluded.

“You and me versus the universe, babe,” Sebastian said with a broad smile and strumming his guitar, he began to play.

“Oh here we go, he blames me for all the ills in his life, you know,” said Tegan with a sarcastic smirk.

“I’m a rolling stone, all alone and lost,” sang Sebastian, meanwhile Tegan got up as if to say he wasn’t a part of this, and started clearing empty plates from the table.

“For a life of sin, I have paid the cost,” continued Sebastian. For that, Tegan gave him a look that said ‘really’?

Sebastian threw his head back and sang “When I walk by, all the people say, just another guy on the lost highway.”

Kat, Yin and Nana all laughed as he continued, “just a deck of cards, and jug of wine, and a young man’s lies makes a life like mine.”

Tegan flipped him off from the galley, he knew what was coming next. 

“On the day we met, uh-huh, I went astray,” Sebastian sang to him, “started rolling down this lost highway.”

There was another round of laughter from Kat and Yin. Sebastian turned to them sitting beside him and continued to sing, “I was just a lad, barely twenty-two, neither good nor bad, just a kid like you.” threw his head back and yelled “But now I’m lost! Too late to pray,” and practically laughed “gonna pay the cost on this lost highway.”

As Sebastian broke into an instrumental, Emrys opened the comm channels on all decks, including the medical deck where Faith lay on her bed, awake now and staring at the iridescent blue-green ceiling. She was thinking about the dark presence whose mind she had touched on the mission while feeling dreadfully lost and alone.

Emrys couldn’t stand it any more, he had to see her. For him it was as if he had just stepped off the bridge and into her room, the transition was instantaneous. She started and raised herself painfully on her elbows to look at him for the first time since their encounter in the music room. Which now seemed so long ago.

Emrys stood a respectful distance away by the door. He didn’t speak, just looked over to her and smiled. He carefully took note of her form, how she moved, how her breathing appeared to increase and her pupils dilated to almost twice their usual size. This was the first time his appearance had inspired that reaction from her. In turn, new subroutines were forming and he just let them run, they didn’t seem to be causing him any harm, they pleased him in fact.

She had worn her hair in tight plaits for the mission but now it was free and moving like metallic dust on the solar winds, shining with silver starlight as it tumbled over her shoulders. He greatly admired that bone crest that ran from the bridge of her nose and fanned out across her forehead, like a delicately intricate coronet, from which her hair grew and framed that pointed face, the pleasing angle, the one that ran from her chin, along her jawline to the tip of those ears that had pricked at the sight of his appearance. He didn’t quite feel attraction in the same way as organics, he had no physical needs, yet this affection was there, it came from somewhere, somehow more meaningful, deep within himself. He found himself contemplating how he could show her this powerful feeling. One that he had trouble expressing even to himself. 

As the sounds of her father playing filled the ship Emrys signed to her, “Are you okay?”

She winced as she laid back down and returned his smile, nodded and signed “thank you.” She then took him completely by surprise, deliberately bringing her hand back to her mouth she blew him a kiss. 

Playfully Emrys snatched it out of the air and with a flick of his wrist threw it back to her, only out of his hand burst a shower of glittering stars. They gently rained a kaleidoscope of colour over where she laid, disappearing as they came into contact with physical objects. 

She looked across to him again but found he had once again vanished. Still, however brief their encounter was, for Faith it was as if he’d taken her out of that pit of despair and placed her somewhere beautiful. She pulled her sheets around herself and snuggled into the pillow, watching all those tiny stars fall slowly around her. All dark thoughts banished by that simple act. All that filled her head now was what it might feel like to be held by him. If such a thing could ever be possible…

Back in the mess hall, Sebastian reached the end of his song, “Now boy's don't start to ramblin' round, on this road of sin are you sorrow bound. Take my advice or you’ll curse the day. You started rolling down this lost highway.”

The last notes fell down the scale as Sebastian’s fingers travelled deftly across the frets of his guitar, and then back as he picked the final high string to the sound of the other’s applause. It really had been the best of nights.

**...**

A few nights later, Tegan laid awake in their quarters, his husband asleep in his arms. His fingers drew slow, lazy circles through Sebastian’s short hair as he contemplated the contents of the footage he had shared with him from Shepard’s mission beyond the Omega 4 relay. It had been enough to make even the most hardened soldier lose sleep. He looked down at his sleeping husband who had always been one of those people who could drop off pretty much anywhere, under any circumstances. _Let him rest while he can_, Tegan thought to himself.

Without warning the room shuddered violently, there was an audible groan from somewhere inside the ship, like the engines had suddenly shut down. Tegan felt his stomach lurch with the sudden feeling of weightlessness. Sebastian stirred as Tegan tightened his grip and the pair of them fell back hard onto the mattress as the gravity returned, everything else in the room slammed back into the deck with the sound of systems powering back up all over the ship. 

Sebastian groaned, “what’s going on?” He looked up at Tegan who just shrugged. “Emrys?” He called groggily. When the AI didn’t answer he reached for his datapad beside the bed, “Kat?” He raised the engineer on the comms.

“No idea, boss. Emrys isn’t responding, I’m heading to engineering.”

Just then a bright light filled the room and Emrys’s avatar rebuilt itself, it only took a few seconds before the turian could be seen lent against Sebastian’s desk, his arms folded, looking rather perturbed.

“Emrys?” Asked Sebastian tentatively.

“System-wide reboot.” Emrys explained, “it happens when there is a change in the network.”

“That’s never happened before?”

“Twice. When the Sol system relay was activated and Relay 314, however, I’ve never lost a relay before.” He said, his eyes shining wildly forward in the gloom. “Shepard just bought us time with a little over three-hundred thousand lives.”

**...**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song Sebastian sings is an adapted version of a Hank Williams track, so beautifully covered [here](https://youtu.be/uMxNTWmycXc) by Jeff Buckley. 
> 
> Whoever you are and whatever time you are reading this I am sending my best wishes to you, and thank you for reading this far. Please tell me if you enjoyed it! The story will continue again soon, I have other WiPs, but this one keeps dragging me back for some reason. Can't imagine why. 😉 Have a lovely rest of your day/evening/night. 💜


End file.
